Transformers: One
by DoctorDo
Summary: (AU) You know the battles. You've loved the characters for years. But do you know their stories? In this fresh take on our favorite franchise, explore stories that haven't been told, point-of-views that have gone neglected for too long, and connections between continuities that have rarely been exploited. Visit the War that started it all. Enter the Transformers Entireverse.
1. Epigraph

"Many millions of years ago, on the planet Cybertron, life existed. But not life as we know it today. Intelligent robots that could think and feel inhabited the cities. They were called Autobots and Decepticons. But the brutal Decepticons were driven by a single goal - total domination. They set out to destroy the peace-loving Autobots, and a war between the forces of good and evil raged across Cybertron; devastating all in its path, draining the planet's once rich sources of energy. The Autobots, on the verge of extinction, battle valiantly to survive."

-Victor Caroli

Opening narration, _The Transformers_ episode one


	2. Exodus Part One: The Battles You've Won

**Author's Note: **

_Pay no mind to the battles you've won_

_It'll take a lot more than rage and muscle_

_Open your heart and hands, my son_

_Or you'll never make it over the river_

-Puscifer, "The Humbling River"

So, I heard that all the cool, popular fanfics like to start off with a song lyric or a snippet from a poem, so I've decided to do the same!

I've had a lot of time to think since my last period of activity on this site. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best idea to start writing about a period that's far closer to the end of my headcanon than the start, and VERY referential of events that no one except me knows about at this time. So let's go back to the beginning - to the era most of you would call "kinda inspired by G1, except with an even more bloated cast of characters. Cripes, this writer's weird. I didn't even know that was possible!"

Self-deprecation aside, I hope you enjoy this fresh new start to the Transformers franchise. I figure if IDW can do it, then so can I! Going back to G1 seems to be a theme these days, doesn't it?

Please note that the existence of this fic does not mean that I'm abandoning the Rebirth. Far from it! I'm merely fleshing out the story I was so desperate to tell all those years back. (Years?! Has it really been that long?!) The Rebirth will still be tended to, though far less frequently, I expect, now that this one will be my primary focus. After all, putting the cart before the horse has never helped anyone, except that guy who invented cars.

I don't own the characters of Roadkill, the Decepticon Triple Changer battalion commander or Scorn, the Dynobot Intelligence officer. They play small parts in the story, but it's still important to add credit where it's due. Per the usual, they're owned by F-for-feasant-design, he's a real cool guy, check out his stuff on DeviantArt.

Companion art pieces are coming to DeviantArt, as long as I'm talking about that. They don't have any bearing on this story yet, but I like to release about one piece of artwork for every full-length chapter, so yeah.

But I've said far too much! Please, enjoy the prose.

-The Doctor (Do)

* * *

The Cybertronian landed badly on a portion of his superstructure that really wasn't meant to be jostled in such a fashion. He felt something break, and a new spike of pain exploded in the sensitive joint. It didn't pass, though, instead deciding to die down to an uncomfortable sensation much akin to having a knife stuck up to its hilt in his flesh. He knew what that felt like because he actually _had_ several blades sticking out of his body at the moment, the smallest barely more than a toothpick in his mechanical hands, the largest someone's handheld collapsible sword that they hadn't been able to recover after his latest battle.

"You'll remain here until our new . . . _allies_ say otherwise," the Cybertronian's former second-in-command said impassively. His bulky frame was ominously silhouetted in the dim light streaming from the hallway outside. The uncharacteristic moment of hesitation in this mech's voice did not go unnoticed. "In the meantime, _they_ will decide your fate."

"Pretty fitting for a traitor and a misleader, eh, _boss?_" a second, deeper voice growled. This one, the deposed Decepticon leader recognized as well. It belonged to General Brawl, the longtime commander of the mighty Decepticon Army; specifically, the unstoppable Infantry division. Even the lowest, most inexperienced Private under Brawl's command had turned against the 'bot who now lay dejected in the cell.

In the past, the Leader may have come up with a withering retort or possibly an impromptu beatdown, just to remind Brawl who was boss. But the fire had left him, probably for good, and instead, he merely dropped his gaze to the floor.

The Infantry commander snorted. "That's what I thought."

"We will attempt to salvage what we can from the remains of _your_ empire," the first mech said in what would ordinarily have been described as a sneer, if not for the fact that the mech in question _didn't_ sneer. "Please, feel free to resist. That will only make your punishment sweeter."

SLAM! The cell's ultra-heavy blast door shut tight, leaving only a tiny porthole through which the Decepticon could watch his captors leave. He waited a few more seconds. Another, more distant noise of the brig's entrance portal closing, accompanied by a faint _hiss _as the laser grid over his cell's door activated as well.

He wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Drawing his once-mighty form into a painful sitting position, he shuttered his optics and began to meditate; brooding on the long road that had brought him here.

Strangely, he wasn't in the least bit surprised when someone spoke inside the supposedly Solitary cell.

"My, what a predicament you've seem to have found yourself in, hmm?"

Red optics snapped open. The Decepticon allowed himself a single, shallow breath, then replied. "I swear to Primus above, if one more person asks me about my current state and/or my nonexistent failings as a leader, I will slowly eviscerate them limb by limb and use their remains to make a recharge slab. I'll even use one of these - rrgh - _infernal_ blades sticking out of my back if needs must." His voice was ragged, rocky, and tortured, in sharp contrast to the rich, flowing baritone he'd once possessed. That, he thought, was one of the worst parts of these circumstances forced upon him.

The old mech sitting across from him raised his palms in the air. "I do not doubt that you would. Just trying to make conversation. I'm actually on your side here, neighbor."

"No . . . you've come to gloat. I can _smell_ your deception, old-timer. It's thick, _wet_ in the air, like a spider's web covered in sticky dew."

A smirk crossed the newcomer's bearded face. He rapped the wall with a rather ornate cane that the Decepticon could have sworn wasn't there a minute before. "Sure that's not the humidity? We _are_ at the bottom of the ocean, you realize. Decepticons were never that great at proper starship insulation, no?"

Suddenly, the floor itself shook as a loud, borderline animalistic groan echoed throughout the brig. The Decepticon winced as his most recent wounds were aggravated by the tremor, but the other robot merely barked a laugh. "I've touched a wire," he chortled.

"Enough! Spare me your endless prattling, Archivist, and get to the blasted point already. If not to mock me, then why have you come? To torture me even further with your very presence, perhaps?"

The ship's groaning stopped almost as quickly as it had begun, and the old mech leaned forward, optics flashing. "You're a clever one, Exemplar of Kaon, King of Cybertron. Please, feel free to figure it out yourself."

Sadly, the Decepticon knew exactly why his new cellmate was locked up with him. "You want a story," he observed, all anger dropping from his heavily armored shoulders. The other mech raised a singular eyebrow along with his right hand, crooked in the way a writer would grasp a pen. Darkness coalesced around his fingertips and solidified into a scribe's writing stylus, complete with a soft blue light near the tip, all while the Archivist drew an ancient-looking datapad from a knapsack tied to his waist. Not from subspace_,_ the Decepticon noted. Of course it wasn't.

"Forgive the intrusion. But it _is _my job, after all," the Archivist asked sheepishly. "The scales of order and chaos have started to tilt for the first time in generations. We are fast approaching the end of one era, and the beginning of yet another. My younger brethren have long since left me, and someone must ensure that our stories survive, even if Cybertron itself does not, hmm? Now, shall we-"

"Stop. I didn't say that I'd _give_ you one," the Decepticon interrupted. "I doubt that you'd even want the one that I have to offer, anyway. It is a long story, and a bitter one at that. It's a story of glorious triumph, yes, but also of terrible failures. It's a story of death, of betrayal, of war and lies and pain. So much pain. So much defeat . . ." He blinked several times, then slumped over in depression. "I'm an old, jaded creature, and I've nothing to show for my years except what you've just heard. My life does not deserve mention in your Book, Archivist. I'd suggest you ask the likes of the Autobot leader, or perhaps that traitor Soundwave. Besides, I do not wish to relive my life. I've wasted every century of it."

He was grateful for the cell's darkness. Hopefully, not even the Old Archivist of Iacon could see the golden tears streaking the dirt and grime on his faceplate.

"Do you have something better to do?" came the reply, tinged with just enough sympathy to make it believable and just enough sarcasm to make it sting.

The Decepticon sighed. "No. It would appear not."

"Very well. Let's begin then, at the beginning. Tell me, child, where does _your_ story start?" his companion asked, stylus raised expectantly.

"It begins as everything in the universe does," he replied. "With a sunrise."

* * *

The gray skies over East Iacon brightened minutely as Hadean rose over the war-torn world of Cybertron. Eons of light pollution and centuries of war hadn't done much to improve the Primal City's skyline, though, and it was a rather muggy summer morning, to begin with; so the land was still covered in darkness when the Autobot Scout entered the complex that, until less than 24 hours ago, had been occupied by his comrades-in-arms.

Bumblebee of the Third Ring was no stranger to breaking into heavily armed compounds. He'd been doing it all his life, having been born into the middle of the Great War, and now he was one of the best Covert Operatives at Optimus Prime's beck-and-call. But it was . . . different, somehow, infiltrating an _Autobot _complex, outfitted with _Autobot_ weapons and defense measures, in the midst of what had _very_ recently been Autobot territory. It didn't make his job harder, of course - if anything, the familiar tech made it easier - but the surge of anger and sadness that overwhelmed his spark every time that he passed another pile of graying corpses was very hard to just ignore.

_I knew most of the guys in that platoon,_ he thought bitterly as he ducked behind a decrepit information kiosk to avoid a Decepticon patrol. One such pile of desecrated bodies lay nearby, and Bumblebee found himself subconsciously naming several of the fallen. Burn-Out. Redline. Mudflap. Strikercycle. And the youngest, a scientist around the same age as Bumblebee himself: Concave. The two young 'bots had taken Energon together on multiple occasions.

A chime shook the Scout out of his dark musings. He chanced a glance at his wrist communicator and grinned. While he'd been skirting around the facility's perimeter, his personal recon drone had pinpointed a flaw in the main building - a large gash in the facility's outer wall, probably from a Devastation shell, that led just far enough to reach an elevator shaft. From there, he would call his partner on this mission, Chief Engineer Wheeljack, and hopefully, receive directions to the objective they were after. The only problem was the drop to the bottom of the shaft - and, of course, the hostile army infesting every nook and cranny of the facility.

Bumblebee called the drone to him and transformed, making a beeline for the building in the center of the facility.

* * *

Minutes later, the Scout landed on the remains of an elevator platform. He slid down a particularly smooth piece of wreckage, wove around a spent shell - as it turned out, it _was_ a Devastation bomb - and forced his way through another crack in the wall. A larger Decepticon soldier - probably a jetformer, by the looks of her kibble - was standing with her back to the wall just a few mechanometers away. Bumblebee closed the distance quickly, shifting his arm into secondary form as he did so, and jabbed the 'Con in the base of her neck strut with his weapon. SNAP! Electricity arced from the tip of his Stinger, overloading his foe's circuitry in an instant. She dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

"Wheeljack, I'm in," the small yellow bot relayed as he eased the Decepticon to the floor. It wasn't easy, as she was about twice as tall and thrice as bulky as he was, but he'd had plenty of practice dropping thugs that were bigger than him on the streets of his hometown.

"Nice! How'd the Heli-Pack work out for ya?" came the immediate, cheerful reply.

The Scout peered over the Decepticon's computer terminal and surveyed his surroundings. An online forum was displayed on the computer screen - something about a Triple Changer-exclusive online community - but Bumblebee ignored it. His recon drone felt warm on his back. "Well, with all due respect, it hasn't exploded just yet, sir."

Wheeljack let loose a noise that was more of a strange-sounding snort than a laugh. "That's always a win in my book. Right, so accordin' to these schematics here, you're in an old hotel ballroom from before the war broke out. Durin' our . . . eh, _occupation_ of the area, we used it for a monitoring an' communications post for the facility as a whole. Seein' as you're standin' in what's basically its command center, the building's power room shouldn't be too far away."

Already Bumblebee was moving, sticking to the shadows and avoiding the Decepticons who were busying themselves about the room. One low-ranking soldier with a trailer full of munitions crates passed him by, too preoccupied with his task to notice the yellow-black Autobot within arm's reach; hiding behind a long-abandoned workstation. "Copy that. I'm patching you into my optics now." There was a strange tingling sensation behind Bumblebee's eyes as he granted the Engineer access to his visual feed, and then nothing.

". . . and BINGO! I've got ya, 'Bee. Continue down through the maintenance shaft in that orange hallway just ahead of ya. Follow it for twenty mechanometers an' drop down at your first opportunity."

The shaft in question was bolted shut and nearly obscured by the wreckage of several pieces of furniture. Standard Autobot procedure - guarded against sneaky-peeky spies like him, but only provided a scant measure of protection. Most of the splinters had already been pushed away from the grate, and only a few large chunks still remained.

"Good. Makes my job easier," Bumblebee muttered under his breath as he set about his task. The fastening bolts didn't even faze him as he worked quickly and efficiently, melting each one with short, intense blasts of energy from his Stinger. He was in within seconds, even counting the time it took to replace the vent over the shaft's entrance.

Like many maintenance shafts he'd been in, this one was musty, dusty, and cramped. Even in vehicular configuration, it was a tight fit. A sustained, quiet drone filled the corridor - the sound of a dying planet reflected and amplified by the buildings that once stood proudly on its surface.

The shaft dropped down a few mechanometers, just as Wheeljack had promised. Bumblebee found himself in a small, dark room, abandoned save for two Decepticon scientists who were examining the room's centerpiece: six thin, glowing batteries installed into an energy pylon. Again, rather standard for an Autobot research facility, but something was distinctly different about these. Bumblebee set a few subroutines aside for cracking the code.

One of the scientists, an unassuming winged mech wearing the standard coloring of a Decepticon grunt, noticed the Scout. His optics widened. "Autobot! Over there!"

"Don't fire!" his buddy cried, diving for cover. This one was more eye-catching than his drab gray friend, with spiky red-and-blue armor that caught the sparse light of the power room. Once he'd situated himself, he continued in a calmer, more reasonable tone. "I don't know how you Autobots managed to develop an energy source like this, but I do know one thing: a single errant shot and it's likely this whole compound will go up in smoke! Don't breach the batteries' outer casings, whatever you do!"

Bumblebee, who had taken the time to hide behind a nearby chair, smirked underneath his battle mask. "Lucky for all of us! I'm not Cybertron's biggest fan of guns anyway."

"Security breach in the main power room!" the other scientist hissed into a wrist communicator. "Someone get a Melee Specialist in here A-S-A-fraggin'-P - and for the love of Primus, proceed with caution! There's an Autobot spy in here, and a power source of titanic proportions to boot! We'll all be blown to kingdom come if you're not-AARGH!"

The scientist was interrupted by a mid-size recon drone hitting him full-on in the face, having been launched from Bumblebee's back with a loud FSSSS! It shut the 'Con up, but the damage was done - the Decepticon Army had been informed of his presence, and it was a matter of moments before the bill came due. Bumblebee kicked the chair he'd been hiding behind, sending it flying across the floor toward the red Decepticon's position. Not sticking around to see the impact, he engaged his rocket boosters and dashed to the left, leapfrogging over a computer terminal on the way. The Heli-Pack rolled about in missile mode, sparking and letting out pained clicks and whirrs as the Cybertronian next to it mirrored its movements. He had a nasty-looking dent on his faceplate - making him look a little like the sole on the bottom of Bumblebee's pede - and he was groaning in pain. One of his optics was black and bleeding Energon. Bumblebee administered a swift, hard kick to the poor mech's helm, and he was silent.

_Well, one down. One to go. Not including the dozens of other nasties who'll be bursting through that door any breem now, of course, _Bumblebee thought with a twinge of regret. Voices sounded outside the power room, and loud, percussive noises came from the reinforced doors.

BOOM!

Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh, but seeing as the scientist that now lay offline at his feet was part of a violent terrorist organization that had taken over pretty much all of the Cybertronian homeworld by force and slaughtered anyone who stood in their way, he wasn't going to shed too many tears over a slightly brutal knockout.

BOOM!

Which reminded him - he transformed and hit the accelerator as soon as he physically could. The yellow courier shot across the floor just as the other 'Con rose to his feet. The red mech never got situated - Bumblebee was too fast, and before either of them knew it, the Decepticon was sprawled and twitching on the floor, his adversary kneeling over him with a smoking Stinger in hand. Another 'Con was offline, but a massive threat was still closing in hot.

BOOM!

Bumblebee didn't waste a second. He reattached the Heli-Pack and immediately began to detach the batteries from their pylon. A klaxon wailed somewhere close by.

**BOOM**! The sound of the battering ram was getting louder. The power room door swayed on its hinges.

Wheeljack gave out instructions almost as fast as Bumblebee could carry them out, and their objective _slowly _came within reach. Much too slowly.

Finally, the last safeguard lifted, and Bumblebee's HUD nearly fragmented itself. He finally realized just _what_ was so strange about the power pylon.

"Wheeljack . . . the energy levels coming off of these things are _insane!" _he breathed in amazement. "Looks like there's enough here to power one of the Moons. How did your R+D guys even pull off something like this off?"

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. The blast door behind Bumblebee buckled inward. "Not important right now. All you need to think about is gettin' out of here. Get under something, quick."

Bumblebee had learned a long time ago not to question the hyperactive Engineer - it only led to extreme confusion at best and fiery destruction at worst. He rolled beneath the nearest computer terminal, making sure the batteries didn't get crushed under his weight. A final impact sounded outside as the power room door was blasted to pieces. Tactical flashlight beams prodded the room, some coming to rest on the unconscious bodies of the scientists and others illuminating the now-empty pylon where the energy rods used to be.

"He's still in here! Sweep the room - don't miss a single possible hiding spot!" a voice called.

"The batteries MUST be found immediately! Call Bitstream! Have her lock down the facility before the Autobots escape! The _Nemesis_ launches today, brothers, and our enemies' destruction hinges on our shoulders!"

Bumblebee flagged one sentence for review and sent it to his partner. "Wheeljack, did you catch that?" he commed silently.

"Loud an' clear, little buddy! I need you to brace yourself! Artillery incoming - t-minus NOW!"

The Scout redistributed his armor plating and wormed tighter into his little alcove just as a searing wave of heat penetrated the power room's defenses. He was dimly aware of the Decepticons screaming as they were burned to the core by the orbital strike laser, the terminal above him melting into a waterfall of hot, sparking plastic, and the paint on his back beginning to bubble. It was nothing serious yet- cosmetic damage, mostly, and a few cracking cables - but the whole experience was downright excruciating.

Finally, the pillar of light dissipated. Bumblebee's back was raw and burned, stinging like crazy, and his spark was humming erratically, but he pushed out of the still-hot drippings of computer terminal and stood. The power room was a smoking mess of carbon and burning metal, faintly glowing ground pulling at and burning into his thick steel soles. Toxic vapors wafted from the glassified edges of the crater he was now standing in. He had to get out - not even a Cybertronian could stand breathing that gas for an extended period of time. Twin rotor blades sprouted from the Heli-Pack with an agonized shriek and lifted him out through the massive hole in the facility above.

"Package retrieved, sir. I'm on my way to the rendezvous point now," he reported.

"Hurry up, 'Bee. Decepticon defenses are temporarily down after ya yanked the rug out from under them, but it won't be long before they switch ta backup power. Oh, an' the Seekers ain't affected by the outage in any way either."

He was right, of course - already Bumblebee could see air units approaching from the southeast. The Heli-Pack was a marvelous piece of equipment, but there was no way it could outfight or outfly even the slowest and dimmest Flyer on Cybertron. Like always, Bumblebee had to do what he did best: avoid detection.

It was a nerve-wracking two-minute flight through the most Decepticon-heavy area of East Iacon. At every turn Bumblebee expected to run headfirst into a field camp or cross the path of an X10 Sentry turret that had been commandeered by the enemy, but the Heli-Pack was too good. Even damaged from its recent encounter with the scientist's face, it was able to make minute course corrections, avoiding all the heaviest concentrations of Decepticons, and staying low to the decaying ruins of Iacon's most personable neighborhood without slamming into anything.

Like the rest of the Cybertronian capital, East Iacon was formerly a gorgeous city with public parks, breathtaking architecture and monuments, and pricey apartments to call its very own. The residential neighborhood on the First Ring had even won several awards for quality of living, atmosphere, and luxury in numerous intergalactic magazines in its heyday. Unfortunately, those days had long since passed. To a casual observer, the relative poverty of the other four Rings seemed to have leaked topside, bringing with it the crime, dereliction, and desolation - the hallmarks of a thousand-year war were felt even here, in the middle of Autobot territory. The First City.

No . . . that wasn't the right word. _Especially_ here. The Autobots had lost ages ago. From the moment Central Iacon was ransacked and Zeta Prime kidnapped, everything had plummeted downhill from there at a staggering rate. Now Iacon was the last City - everything else belonged to the dread warlord Megatron and his sinister triumvirate.

Cybertron was Decepticon territory. The Autobots were nothing more than glorified rebels, a splinter group of individuals desperately clinging to the last remnant of the way things were many thousands of years ago.

The Heli-Pack crested a ridge lined with the burnt-out remains of apartment buildings. Bumblebee, with his excellent vision, could see the rendezvous point from here - an exit ramp just outside the facility's walls - but for whatever reason, he stopped to hover in one spot. He wasn't really sure why.

Wreckage of two Autobot Enforcer tanks littered the ash-choked streets below him. Just a few miles before him, the Holy Chasm opened up like a vast sea of empty air leading straight to the planet's core, lit from within by fading purple light. The massive island of the Old City with all of its cathedrals, shrines, high-rises, and battlements stood suspended over the void, supported only by seemingly too-small rings below it. Beyond that, if Bumblebee squinted, he could just make out the Central Spaceport and a faint shape plated with gleaming orange shimmering in the middle of it all.

The Autobot Ark. Nice, but not the reason he stopped at all.

Down below, a small family of Neutrals picked through the battlefield as they attempted to salvage what they could from both the shells of buildings and the graying bodies strewn about the carnage. His spark clenched as the smallest one - barely out of the protoform stage - bent over to pick up a very bedraggled youngling's toy, stained with something from somewhere he didn't want to think about. It clenched again when the sparkling's carrier noticed the bright yellow Autobot above them and began to creatively curse him out at the top of her voice.

"No, no ma'am, please don't - oh." His voice died when a flash of movement back toward the East caught his eye. The Heli-Pack shuddered and coughed, but its user didn't respond. The long, thin, extra-powerful batteries in his arms suddenly seemed to weigh a ton.

"'Bee, what are you DOING? The Seekers'll be on us at any moment! Slag, they're shuttin' down the facility for cryin' out loud!" Wheeljack indignantly cried. "I can see you from here already! Just finish the trip!"

"Wheeljack . . ." Bumblebee began in a small voice. "This is East Iacon. Wh-where Trypticon fell."

"Yeah, your point?"

"Nothing, I - I just thought he was carted off somewhere else in piecemeal-and-stasis-lock after we - after _Optimus_ took him out; and the facility over his crash site was put up to study Dark Energon or something. But he was kept on-site for this - for this _whole __**time?**_"

His partner scoffed. "You kiddin' me right now, kid? Trypticon was friggin' MASSIVE. Really, it was best for all parties involved that we keep 'im _there_ for study, an' when the Visco started to get thin - hey, waittaminute. That's above your clearance level!"

Bumblebee let out a static-filled keen, unwanted memories of the battle with the monster filling up his vision. "Clearance levels don't matter anymore, Wheeljack. The War's lost. And if what I'm seeing is what I think it is . . ."

"What _are_ you seein'?" the Engineer asked, forgetting his anger in an instant. Concern found its way back into his voice. "I can't seem to find anything in your line of sight . . ."

Instead of replying, Bumblebee zoomed in on one particular structure in the distance and sent a picture to Wheeljack through the comms-bond. Everything was quiet for a moment, and then the Engineer spoke.

"Slag," was all he said.

"That-that's Trypticon," Bumblebee stammered. "And he's become a starship."

* * *

_Red optics in an enormous impassive face stared accusingly down at the rightful ruler of Cybertron. The Decepticon Commander felt fear touch his spark for the first time in centuries. Just a handful of moments ago, he'd been on top of the world - literally. Well-rested, confident in his army's capability, and in good spirits with a plan for the decacycle ahead. The hateful Autobots hadn't stood a chance against his triad of Warp Cannons, especially with their foolish General Grimlock out of the equation - at least, until the city itself had transformed and allied itself with the enemy._

_Now the city stood over his final Cannon in humanoid form, looming over him like a massive stormfront bringing only destruction. It - whatever it was - scowled down at him with the only emotion it seemed to have: mild disdain. A hand the size of a city block raised far into the clouds, and it finally dawned on the former gladiator that he may not live to see his dream fulfilled. It was quite possible that he would die today and be followed by his legacy tomorrow, or next decacycle perhaps._

Very well.

_His empire would not die with him. There were far too many redundancies and failsafes set up for that. And if he himself would perish for the cause, then so be it!_

"_Why are you running, fools? STAND AND FIGHT!" he bellowed to his troops, letting none of his own fear come to the surface. His arm cannon roared with him as the Decepticon leader made his final stand._

_The colossus didn't reply, or even respond to the fusion cannon shots harmlessly fizzling out against its blocky chest. Instead, it merely clenched its massive fist._

_Like something out of a nightmare, the hand began to descend._

Megatron's optics flew open. Armor segments all across his body lifted and set as one while he booted up. He was breathing heavily in an attempt to cool his panicked inner workings - except, as he discovered while reviewing his own diagnostic reports, nothing in his entire body was actually overheated.

He took in his surroundings, focusing on some things more than others to warm up his optics and calm his mind. Following yesterday's assault on the Autobots' main scientific facility, the Decepticon army had required quarters to spend the night in preparation for their grand exodus. Most top officers had immediately taken what few housing developments still remained standing after all these years of war, leaving their underlings to make camp anywhere they could find amid the ruins, bodies, and wreckage covering almost every square mechanometer of the district. The Decepticon leader had other ideas, though. He had commandeered a tiny shack on the facility's outskirts, far from the crater that now would serve as a launchpad for the _Nemesis_ spacecraft. His loyal second-in-command, Soundwave, had elected to occupy the two-story home across the street, which the enterprising Outlier had transformed into the new Decepticon communications hub.

Compared to Soundwave's control center, Megatron's temporary home wasn't much. There was a shelf, a small table lying in pieces over in a corner, and a recharge slab currently stacked with weaponry in the center of it all. The Decepticon commander had spent the night cross-legged on the floor like the feudal monarchs of old. He found that the position granted him more focus, more productive sleep when out in the field than some Empty commoner's recharge unit or a collapsible military-grade cot would have done.

Two shuttered windows looked out on a smoking battlefield and a single fluorescent light, canted at an angle, buzzed over the recharge slab. The floor was essentially carpeted with semi-organic dirt, the walls were crooked and full of holes, and there was almost no roof to speak of - there _was, _at one point, and it had been occupied by an Autobot Sentry turret, but one blast from Megatron's cannon in tank mode had quickly put a stop to that nonsense. On top of all that, the shack was pretty drafty.

Megatron loved the place. Not only did he find the irony of the situation delicious - a small, unassuming class-D citizen's shack in the middle of Autobot territory bore host to the warrior who would destroy them forever - but it also reminded him of his past. The simple furnishings and ramshackle room reminded him of his early days as a gladiator, eking out a miserable existence between fights in a broom closet even smaller than this place. In those tiny quarters, he'd written some of his best works before heading out to the Arena to share them with the world.

The idealistic young Decepticon had met a majority of his most trusted lieutenants in the Pits of Kaon. Really, it could be said that the Decepticons were born there, amidst the fire, smoke, and oil-spattered sands of the Arena. Flamewar, Emperor Dezaras, Razorclaw, Snaptrap, Shellshock, and Soundwave - the old guard. They had started from nothing, and now, here they were - Lords of Cybertron, once and forever. But that was a story for another time.

His train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of a bulky blue Decepticon, who opened the shack's door and stepped inside without a sound. Megatron was up before he even crossed the threshold. Immediately, the new mech snapped into a precise salute.

"Hail, Lord Megatron!" he intoned in a heavily modulated voice.

Megatron returned the salute. "Greetings, Soundwave. Why have you come?"

"I sensed a strong energy surge originating from your quarters," Soundwave reported. "Detail: politely requested."

"It was nothing," Megatron said. "I was merely meditating before beginning the day. The energy surge you sensed was likely caused by this new form booting up."

The Communications officer studied his superior. "Megatron: lying. True details: critically important. Query: is the new body at fault?"

A flare of anger lit atop the Decepticon Commander's spark. There were drawbacks to having a telepath as one's second-in-command, but Soundwave was one of the only people Megatron could afford to trust. Shockwave was unpredictable, Starscream openly treacherous, and Straxus far too well-equipped for combat in the event that things suddenly went south. Soundwave, however, was a refreshing change of pace. It was almost ironic that the leader of the Decepticon Empire was safer with a telepathic Outlier than a sniveling, non-powered Seeker.

Megatron laughed, a great, booming sound that sent dust raining down from the shack's ruined roof.

"No, Soundwave, not at all. In fact, this incarnation may just be your best work yet. Ah . . . I believe the surge was nothing more than residual memory damage acting up. It will not happen again." He turned to the recharge slab and began perusing the weapons laid out across its surface. His armor shifted to a state between combat and casual forms, and he kept his second-in-command firmly in the corner of his eye. "But I do not think you came all this way to ask me about my systems' operations."

Soundwave's visor glowed. "Situation: less than ideal." He pushed a button on his utility belt, and a holographic screen flickered to life over his chestplate. The Decepticon leader momentarily paused what he was doing and turned to watch. Grainy footage of violent battles and angry mechs and femmes played out on the screen.

"Roadkill's Triple Changer battalion: pinned down on Iacon Outskirts," Soundwave narrated. "Autobots revolting against Decepticon rule all across Northern Cybertron. Kalis: nearly impassable due to battle damage."

A dreamscape of twisted metal, boiling pits of acid, and the destroyed hulk of a Tesarian refinery transport was shown. Megatron's rage flared up again. He'd been briefed on the mission: an all-out operation had been launched on an unsuspecting Autobot vessel carrying a whole lake's worth of raw, undistilled Energon. The op had officially been a failure, thanks in no small part to the temporary commander of the Decepticons at the time. Three-quarters of Decepticon troops had withdrawn from the action and leaving the remaining fourth - the Combaticons, led by Onslaught and Brawl, in addition to a few other courageous troops - to salvage the mission. They'd managed to acquire half of the Energon in the ship's hold but had been stripped of their ranks and imprisoned as a reward. The Kalis Incident had been an unprecedented disaster for both factions, and Megatron knew exactly who was responsible.

"Starscream!" he growled in frustration. Had someone competent, such as Soundwave or even Onslaught himself had been leading the mission, the Decepticons would have gotten it all.

"Affirmative, my lord," Soundwave agreed grimly. "Air Commander Starscream: seemingly dropped offworld. Whereabouts: unknown. Plans: unknown. Riots in streets of Kaon: Starscream loyalists versus-"

"Versus _true_ Decepticons, Soundwave. Suppress the traitors! Have them rot in Kaon prison for as long as it takes for them to come to their senses. Tell the Enforcers that there's no need to be gentle in the process."

Soundwave stiffened a fraction of an inch. "Affirmative. Last update. Sector 35: ransacked. Autobot spy: successfully stolen Plasma Energy Batteries from Trypticon's Folly. Facility: low on power. _Nemesis:_ at 65% power and dropping. Launch: recommended ASAP."

Much to the Communication mech's surprise, a grin spread over Megatron's face. "Excellent. The Autobots have taken the bait, then. How many troops do we have in the Spaceport?"

"Five battalions remain within Autobot territory, sir," Soundwave replied.

"That will do. Order them to stage a feint on the _Ark_'s gates! We'll have to force our enemies into a panic. Swindle!" he commanded, opening a comm-link to the Decepticon munitions officer, "make the final preparations. We launch now - before midday!"

"Enh-uhhh," was the reply. Through the link, Megatron could feel that the Combaticon was still half asleep.

"Hurry up, now!" he barked, closing the connection immediately. "Soundwave - ready your minions and get me Shockwave! This is the eleventh hour!"

The Communications Officer bowed and left hastily, leaving Megatron to pack. He required very little that wasn't already in his subspace, but he turned and began to examine his selection of cannons. Not unsurprisingly, he was drawn to one in particular - the Wired-Warframe Firearm Company's magnum opus - his D50-R35 Riot Cannon, the same one he'd owned and used for centuries. It fused with his arm quickly and efficiently, well-oiled and gleaming components sliding perfectly into place. Several sections of the weapon began to glow with a pleasing blue-violet light as cylinders and tubes connected to the ports they were programmed to for maximum destructive potential - and aesthetic beauty.

Megatron looked over his signature weapon, the grin still etched into his face. "Today, we make history . . . Today, we pave a glorious new path for our race's future, our children and theirs . . . Today, the Autobots fall, once and for all!"

* * *

A pair of old, worn optics gazed out at the skyline of Iacon's Central Spaceport. The mech to whom they belonged hadn't found time to recharge in days, almost a full week, so concerned was he about the future of his people and his homeworld. The best he'd gotten was a few minutes of field recharge - hardly enough to keep him running - and yet, he still stood at attention on the highest point of the Autobots' field base, a sentinel against the forces of tyranny that would drive his kindred to extinction.

For the first time in ages, Optimus Prime had time to think about more than the crushing pressure of the Decepticon Empire bearing closer and closer to the city-state of Iacon, the last remaining Autobot state on the planet. He had time to think about all the life lost in just the past few days; the _Ark_, last hope of his kind; and the fact that none of his best men had any idea _where _they were going outside of simply getting offworld. All allied colonies had either been seized by the enemy or made off-limits due to circumstances beyond the control of Autobot Command. It truly was a dark time.

What he _really_ wanted was to go back to the way things were before the War. He wanted to spend a quiet evening with his bondmate, in his home overlooking the Trannis Fork. He wanted to have a nice dinner without having to worry if his troops would have enough to eat that night. Most of all, he longed for the days when he didn't need to take up arms and join his allies on the field of battle, when he wasn't required to end a fellow Cybertronian's life every single day just to avoid being killed himself.

In his darkest moments, he feared for his spark and soul. What if he'd been wrong this whole time? What if, on the other side of the ever-changing border that separated Decepticon territory from the rapidly shrinking Autobot-held land, life really was the utopia that Megatron's propaganda made it out to be? What if all the fighting, all the death, and all the pain really was for nothing? That, he thought, would be one of Primus's greatest pranks yet.

But no. He'd seen the Smelting Pits of Darkmount and Kaon with his own optics, the aftermath of the brutal gladiatorial combat that captured Autobot POWs were forced to participate in. His experiences in Kaon Prison still haunted the Autobot Supreme Commander to this day. The torture of Omega Supreme, the slaughter of the Senate, the numerous war crimes committed by every other subgroup within the ranks. All of it was unquestionably evil.

It was vital that he keep pushing against the Violet Tide, but the fight just became more and more impossible with each passing day. For every victory, there came two or three setbacks. A regrouping of their forces was more than just a good suggestion - it was absolutely necessary, even if it meant officially giving up Iacon to the Decepticons' hungry regime.

The Autobot leader was jolted out of his musings by a large gray hand landing on his right shoulder pauldron, which withdrew as quickly as it had hit. Optimus turned around and found himself face-to-face with an enormous, panicked-looking Beastformer. The individual was about three heads taller than he was, with nervous yellow optics darting back and forth underneath a red visor. He twitched almost constantly, long, clawed fingers drumming on the fist of his opposite hand as his head jerked this way and that. His sharp, overlarge teeth were bared in a permanent snarl - not an aggressive one, really, but more of an uncomfortable "why-am-i-here-and-why-are-these-people-all-watching-me" sort of expression.

"Optimus Prime, sir," the animalistic mech said. "Sorry for the interruption, but they're ready for you. The City Commander says there's been an urgent development. Something about a big-time incursion-raid-kinda-thing on our Eastern border?"

"Thank you, Backstreet. I suppose that I, too, must apologize for taking such a large portion of your lookout shift. The demand for fresh air and a moment to collect one's thoughts is particularly high these days, yes?"

Backstreet blinked. "Y-Yeah, you betcha. Long as those Onyx-forsaken 'Cons didn't get in on your watch, it's . . . ah . . . fine. Anyways! Override, would you escort our Prime to the meeting room? I'll take your shift for you."

A cycleformer that had been hiding in the shadow of the massive luponoid stepped into the light. "Thanks, boss. Right this way, Prime."

Optimus followed the Triggerbot, but not before casting his gaze around the Iaconian landscape, taking all of the beautiful buildings still standing tall against the War for one last time. Little did he know it at the time, but he wouldn't get a chance to behold his home city with naked optics again for a very, very long time.

* * *

Chaos reigned supreme within the walls of Field Base Epsilon.

The halls were clogged with mechs, femmes, and sparklings of all shapes and sizes, most of them citizens who'd fled to Iacon weeks ago and got caught up in the thick of things rather than finding the sanctuary that they'd hoped for. Top officers and the lowest class of soldier intermingled freely with each other on their way from somewhere important to someplace demanding even more of their attention. It seemed like a crisis was constantly brewing in the center of Autobot territory - which, in a way, was true - as red lights flashed and klaxons blared even into the deepest hours of the night. Every spare room had been converted into sleeping quarters for the base's unforseen load, and more refugees kept coming in as the Decepticons inched further into Iacon's borders. Sparks flew from the ceiling almost constantly. Grime-caked engineers stumbled toward the washracks and their replacements - some mere citizens trying to get offworld - went the opposite direction to get the _Ark _up to full capacity.

In short, this was one of the only bases of operations that the Autobots still held, and it was plainly evident in every hallway and every room of the building.

"Out of the way, people! We got a Prime coming through!" Optimus's Triggerbot escort barked. "Make a hole and make it wide!"

"Someone get me a Medic! I need a Medic over here!" someone shouted when Optimus and Override were just a few mechanometers away from the meeting room portal. A white car-former entered the crowded hall with a smaller yellow Scout slung over his shoulder and a Mini-Trailer clamped under his opposite arm. He was covered head to toe with Energon and black soot, and the blasted, smoking remains of a battered bodykit was still strapped to his back.

Optimus recognized him immediately - Chief Engineer Wheeljack of Gygax, in his natural state.

"Wheeljack! How can I be of assistance?" the Prime asked, rushing to the aid of his friend. He'd said nearly that exact same line far too many times to count over the past month or so.

"Someone call for a medic?" A red-and-white mech came out of the meeting room. He was a little shorter than Optimus, heavily armored around the torso area, and possessed a "backpack" with two antennae jutting up from its sides. There were a set of smile crinkles at the corners of his optics, but he looked like he hadn't smiled in a long, long time. He looked like a broke, depressed medical school student who'd kind of let himself go a bit, even though everyone knew that all of this mech's heft was purely front-line armor for a front-line medic.

"Ratchet!" Wheeljack exclaimed. "It's Bumblebee. We ran into a Decepticon attack just outside'a the Old City. They had some slaggin' Outlier there, went by the name a' Sunstorm? I think he mighta been radioactive or somethin'. We barely made it outta there alive. Poor kid here took th' worst of it."

Ratchet withdrew a scanner-orb from subspace. He ran the soft blue light emitted from the device over the Scout's inert form, paying particular attention to the black, steaming wounds that peppered Bumblebee's body. The largest of them was wrapped around his neck, an ugly, bubbling sore in the vague shape of a hand. The Chief Medical Officer grimaced.

"It's not good, I'm afraid," he growled, transforming into an ambulance just large enough to store the injured Scout inside. "He'll need a trip to the medbay straight away. Pour him in, then."

Wheeljack did so, then stepped back as Ratchet left. His eyes didn't leave the CMO's cargo hold until Ratchet turned a corner disappeared from view.

"Do you have the Plasma Batteries, Wheeljack?" Optimus asked, mostly because it was important information that needed to be shared, but also to take the Engineer's mind off of Bumblebee's plight.

"Huh? Oh yeah, we got 'em. Couldn't salvage any of . . . you-know-who's super-juice, though."

Optimus's eyes widened. He checked to see no one was listening, then leaned in close. "You mean to tell me that Megatron has drained the Lizard - completely dry?!"

"Er . . . we gotta work on that codename, Optimus. But, no. He's - ah - well, we can't discuss it here. Too much of a risk, ya know? Tell you at the meeting. I gotta get these batteries installed ASAP, or none of us are gonna make it off Cybertron."

It was only then that Optimus realized just how beaten-down his Chief Engineer really looked. In addition to the ruined bodykit on his back, Wheeljack was shot in several places. At first, he'd thought that all the Energon coating the sports car's body was Bumblebee's but it was quickly becoming clear that a lot of it was seeping from bullet wounds in Wheeljack's superstructure. There was a pronounced tightness in his shoulders - whether from fatigue or pain, Optimus didn't really know - and his earfins were a slightly weaker blue than usual. Despite all this, his optics were still sharp and clear, and he was still fidgeting with something in his right hand.

Optimus straightened. "Very well. If you feel up to the task, please, feel free to do as you will. Just stay in touch with Command as you work. I've got a feeling this day may bring with it far more than we'd bargained for."

"Well, sir, what else could a new day bring ta the table other than somethin' we weren't expecting?" Wheeljack intoned. He fired off a brief salute and left for the nearest exit.

The Autobot Leader was quiet for a brief moment, listening to all the tired sighs and worried conversations around him, then let off a long exhale himself. He _really_ needed a vacation.

"'Let us see, then, what mountains have been placed before us now, and prepare to reach the summit by any means we can,'" he said, quoting the Book of Expansion.

"Prime!" a familiar voice shouted from inside the Meeting Room. "We've got a situation on our hands!"

* * *

Under different circumstances, coming into Fueling Station Delta's impromptu meeting room would have been a relief. The vaulted ceiling and wide-open space was a welcome breath of fresh air, especially after the cramped quarters of the hallways. Before the war, it had been a maintenance bay for Spaceport-licensed vehicles, so it was suitably sized to fit even the largest of shuttle carriers.

Now, a hydraulic lift had been rolled to the center of the room to act as a makeshift conference table. Assistants paced back and forth along wide catwalks ringing the room's sides, maintaining several dozen monitors that fed in information from all across Cybertron; as a large number of heavily armored mechs argued with each other over the lift or watched live feeds of border skirmishes on the many computer stations concentrated throughout the bay. The Autobot Leadership.

A red-and-gray terminal in the corner unexpectedly transformed into a tape-carrier type mech, who scowled as he tapped the side of his head, as if to displace water from his auditory sensors. "More losses," he reported in a defeated tone. "Slag it all, when does it end?"

"It ends when Megatron's finished fer good - as in, dead and gone!" one of the older mechs bellowed, slamming his fist onto the table. "I just got back from the Western front. Fourteen soldiers lost their lives before we managed ta turn back the enemy! It's past time we mount a serious strike on the 'Cons before they wipe us off the map. Too many good warriors - good _mechs_, all'a them - have died while we sit here twiddlin' our thumbs an' protectin' the Ark!"

"Yeah! Metroplex's worth - KAPOW! - Metroplex's worth a whole army all by himself! We need to _retake_ something already! Iacon's great and - WHAMMO! - and all, but if it falls, we're dead already! BAM! We gotta march as soon as possible. I'm talking guns, artillery, explosions, missiles, orbital strikes - KABAM! ZOWEE! BLAST!"

Splashdown, the Autobot Admiral, leaned forward with a loud _creak_ and spoke in his slow, ages-old voice. Like his second-in-command who stood silently at his side, Splashdown didn't speak often or loudly, but when he did, he drew everyone's attention. "Control yourself, Warpath. Much as I agree with you, I fear that your route will lead to even more suffering, even more pain, than the situation we are in now. Just yesterday, a fleet of my best gunboats, led by Ripcurrent himself, mounted an expedition into enemy territory via the Trannis Fork under Nova Cronum. They encountered an ambush in a natural chokepoint at the Zaptrap Rapids, and were, despite their firepower and combat prowess, completely unprepared for an attack of such a scale. Eight went in. None came out. My troops were either disassembled for spare parts or smashed to pieces on Zaptrap's spires. The Naval Division is crippled. The loss of Ripcurrent and his men is felt throughout our ranks. Their bodies . . . will lie at the bottom of the Fork forever." He leaned back again, gnarled and sea-bitten hands shaking with emotion, and lit a pipe. "This war will not be salvaged by force. At this point, our future will either rise or fall by those under Jazz's command only. We cannot risk the lives lost in traditional battle, so we must turn to the shadows if we are to survive."

"Or the stars," Optimus added as he entered the meeting. Most of the high-ranking officers saluted. Splashdown merely bowed his head in respect.

"The Prime has arrived. Let the council be met," the blue mech at the head of the table declared, banging the hilt of his war hammer on the concrete floor. Ultra Magnus - City Commander of Iacon, leader of the Holy Primal Elite Guard, and Optimus Prime's own brother.

"Hear, hear!" the other officers cried.

"At ease, brothers." The whole ceremony was undoubtedly an über-formal throwback to the Age of Knights, but it felt good to have just that minute amount of unbreakable, incorruptible order in these times of chaos. Prime took the nearest available seat, turning down the chair that Air Commander Silverbolt left to offer him.

"Now, let us be frank," Optimus began. "We are fighting an unwinnable battle here. That much is certain. Every astrosecond we hold on to Iacon in a futile effort to protect a now-long-defunct government and its subjects-"

"A government that was horribly Functionist and corrupt from the get-go," Silverbolt's gestalt-mate and TIC Air Raid muttered under his breath. The Aerialbot leader elbowed him in the gut to get him to shut up.

"My apologies, Prime. Skydive's busy reinforcing the 81st Polyhex Airborne Corps, or else I would have brought him. Please, ignore my brother's insubordination and continue," Silverbolt said, shooting Air Raid a venomous glare.

"That's fine, Silverbolt. There is no need to apologize. As I was saying, the longer we attempt to hold Iacon, the stronger our foes become. Most of you have already been briefed on this, but yesterday evening, Research Outpost T-5 was seized by the Decepticons. Megatron himself led the attack."

The council exploded into horrified conversation. Cybertron's self-proclaimed leader apparently returning from the dead was one thing, but this brazen power grab and obvious increase of power was quite another.

Optimus held up his hand for quiet. "I am afraid it gets worse. Lieutenant Mainframe, if you would patch Wheeljack through?"

"That's a copy, sir," the vast computer station behind Magnus replied. A progress bar popped up on its largest screen almost immediately.

Warpath made a funny choking sound. "That-that thing's a _person?"_

His direct commander, Ironhide, scowled. "Be polite, kid. Mainframe's the best jack-a'-all-trades we got. He can do surveillance, launch WMDs, run communications, program Enforcers, direct troops, play three different datatracks at the same time while whaling on a Titan-class-"

"-and analyze your current technical data at any time, including deducing your thought processes by picking up on the subtlest of telling signs," the living supercomputer finished. "And no, I won't retaliate from something as small as an ignorant comment. Not everyone can be a brawny tank-former, after all, and there's no point in getting offended over that. Now, spilling a cube of lukewarm, half-finished Energon on my secondary terminal and trying to cover it up, on the other hand . . ."

"BAM! I'm sorry, man! I-I cleaned it up as best as I - KAPOW - could!" Warpath pleaded.

"Ha, ha! Just kidding. I don't care. I _am_ qualified to operate at full capacity more than 75 mechanometers underwater, you know. It's fine. Oh, by the way, Optimus, he's on now."

Wheeljack's face filled the screen, still covered in soot and oil from earlier, although it seemed he had taken some time to wipe some of the gunk out of his eyes. The camera must have been lying on the floor in the _Ark_, because there was a substantial amount of ceiling visible in the shot. The Engineer himself was bent over the device he was streaming from, occasionally leaving view to grab another tool from somewhere off to his right. "-ello! Hellooo! This thing on?"

"We read you loud an' clear, 'Jackie," Prime's second lieutenant, Jazz, affirmed.

"Wheeljack, if you would tell us what you wanted to tell me earlier?" Optimus prompted.

The Engineer whacked whatever he was working on with a wrench, then grinned as a green light reflected off of his faceplate. "First off, gentlemechs, I'd like to introduce you all to the Cybertronian race's newest hope-" he lifted the camera until a power pylon glowing with pent-up energy was centered in the frame. A top-down view of his head and chest took up the rest of the picture. "-the highest-tech, highest-capacity Plasma Energy batteries ever to come outta my R+D department! There's enough juice in these babies to get us off Cybertron _and _power the ship's major functions all the way to Elonia! No pictures, please - if someone shared these designs with anyone else, I'd have to kill them!" He said this last part as if it were fantastic news.

"Wait just a moment," the head of the Autobot Science Division, Perceptor, said. "There's only six of those batteries in the entire solar system. I'm overjoyed that you were able to recover them, but they were made to keep the restraints holding Trypticon from deactivating. Without them, nothing is holding the Decepticons back from assembling the very being that nearly turned all of Iacon into a smoking crater!"

Wheeljack grimaced. "Yeah . . . Trypticon isn't the thing we should be worried about anymore."

"Right, Perceptor," Jazz agreed. "We've siphoned off most of his Energon to fuel the _Ark_ Even if the 'Cons **do** manage to put him back together again, it'll be a long, long time 'fore they get 'im up an' running. What's important now is that th' batteries are outta Shockwave's hands."

"No, that's not what I - look, guys," Wheeljack cut in. His headfins flashed in distress. "I said Trypticon isn't a problem anymore, and I was right. It's what he's been turned into that worries me."

Optimus's optics narrowed. He realized that he'd risen slightly from his chair while the Chief Engineer was talking. Something about Wheeljack's obvious fear and discomfort put him on edge, but he couldn't explain why. "Go on."

"It's better if I just show ya," the white Engineer replied.

An image filled Mainframe's largest monitor. It depicted, among the ruined high-rises and towers of East Iacon, a colossal Decepticon Black Violet ship. The data-stamp on the bottom of the picture declared that it had been live-clipped from an Autobot's optics - Bumblebee's, which explained the flawless clarity of the scene. So clear was it that one could point out tiny vestiges of the great NeoTitan's original form in the spacecraft, even though it had been twisted into some gross approximation of a Decepticon Worldburner-class destroyer - the wings plainly formed from Trypticon's stinger-tail, his claws stretching over the enormous engines, the unmistakable shape of his lizardlike head in every angle of the bridge. The Autobot Leadership erupted into conversation again.

"The 'Cons call it '_Nemesis',_" Wheeljack's voice reported. "I can only assume it's named after the mythological monster who'll send Cybertron into another Dark Age."

"The Herald of the Destroyer God," Silverbolt recalled. "The creature who will end the Primal Lineage by-"

"Killing the last Prime," someone finished.

Optimus felt about three dozen sets of optics fall on him. At this point, he'd stood up entirely and had no desire to return to his seat.

"Buncha superstitious Decepticon romanticism if you ask me," Wheeljack said, attempting to break the tension and only succeeding in warping it a little bit. "But the point is, this thing - this _monstrous _thing - it looks like it's got enough firepower to turn the _Ark _into a piece of flying slag. The 'Cons say they launch today, an' knowing our undead pal Megatron, he's got a target planet in mind beyond that. Unlike, may I add, us."

Ironhide punched the table again. "An' they've certainly got enough Energon from the Kalis Disaster ta _get_ there!"

"But where _is_ 'there?' It's definitely not in _this_ sector. Velocitron, Antilla, Arduria - there's not a habitable world around here that hasn't already been occupied by either faction, much less a tactically sound place to build a field base," the Chief Strategist, Prowl, pointed out.

"So we follow this _Nemesis,"_ Brawn, the resident Demolitions expert, growled. "Stay behind, stick to shadows of outer space. Slow burn all the way. They land on new world, we arrive in silence. Then - BAM! - We punch mountain, make fall on Decepticreep ship. Infantry will wipe out any survivors."

"And if they engage hyperspace flight? We won't have any way to track them, you bag of Burthovian bolts! We'd be stuck, drifting aimlessly through space until the end of time!" Air Raid exclaimed.

"Is _foolproof_ plan!" the black truckformer shouted, angrily surging to his feet.

"Both of you, COOL OFF!" Ultra Magnus bellowed, effectively putting an end to the confrontation. "We can't let ourselves be torn apart like this! Look outside! Those people - those _hundreds_ of good Cybertronians out there - are counting on us to protect their futures! They're scared for their lives, defenseless, and a lot of them are with sparklings! If we can't get past our differences and sit here bickering all solar cycle, the Decepticons will overrun our city. The creators will be deactivated, the carriers enslaved, and the sparklings will grow up to be either immoral psychopaths who kill for fun or drones too scared to fight for what they deserve. And us? We will be too dead to put a stop to it, all because we couldn't stop fighting amongst ourselves long enough to fight the enemy. Brawn, Air Raid - _lives_ are depending on you. You need to get along, or all of our work, all of our honored dead - it'll all be for nothing. _All_ of us need to get along. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," both mechs said, ashamed.

"Good. None of this is getting us anywhere. We need a concrete plan. Optimus? Do you have any ideas?"

Optimus shared a glance with Prowl. The two mechs had discussed the subject dozens of times, but until now, it had all been merely hypothetical. "As a matter of fact, Ultra Magnus - I _do_."

"The Decepticons," Prowl began, "have, despite our best efforts, won over 90.13% of Cybertron's surface. All of our preestablished lunar colonies and planetary outposts are in states of constant flux between us and them, Decepticon and Autobot. Greater Iacon is the only region, both on-world and off, that remains out of our foes' hands. Speaking frankly, it's plainly obvious to even the most inexperienced of Privates that we continue to lose land with every solar cycle that passes us by. Yesterday's loss of Research Station 35A proved that. If we keep trying to hold Iacon, I fear that the city will be entirely overrun in less than a decacycle."

Murmurings filled the room. Prowl's predictions were never off.

"What's more, the martial strength of our enemies has grown to such a point that it will be nearly impossible to defeat any given legion of Decepticons in a head-on fight, especially those stationed around Iacon. There are simply too many of them for us to handle in our current state. This point has already been acknowledged in this very meeting alone." The Strategist nodded at Splashdown, who returned the gesture.

"Hold on, Prowl," Ironhide interrupted. "If yer tryin' ta say that my mechs an' femmes are weak-"

"I wouldn't say anything of the sort, my friend," Prowl said quickly. "I'm merely stating the facts. Of course, the factor of Dark Energon also has a hand in things, but the central point is that we're heavily outnumbered. Escape is our only option, as so many of our brothers and sisters have already deduced."

"If Grimlock hadn't left his post, it wouldn't _be _our only option," someone muttered.

"At any rate, we simply _must_ leave our homeworld," Prowl said, carefully defining each word, "and take as many civilians out of the danger zone - in this case, Cybertron - as possible."

"But Megatron's plans to leave as well brings up a whole new host of problems," Optimus continued. "Firstly, the very nature of the fact that he has suddenly turned a complete 180º on his original agenda means that there _must _be an ulterior motive at work. The Decepticons are not the ones being persecuted. Why would-"

"**You right, Optimus,**" a deep, gravelly voice came. A blue-and-white femme ran over as fast as her legs could carry her with a wheeled monitor in tow. A dark, indistinct silhouette in the shape of a very large robot was displayed on the screen.

"So sorry, sir!" she gasped. "I tried to let you know, but the Prime was on a roll and it's against protocol to speak directly without the permission of a superior officer-"

"Just put 'im on, Strongarm! Is it who I think it is?" Jazz exclaimed.

"Yes sir, Director Jazz," the young Enforcer confirmed. "It's General Grimlock of Kaon."

Optimus snapped into motion, moving toward the monitor. "Grimlock? By the Matrix! Mainframe, patch him through!"

"Patching him through," the Autobot supercomputer muttered as if focusing on some other task.

"No viruses detected, no tampering evident - the signal's legit, Prime!" Blaster proclaimed.

Wheeljack's video feed was pushed to the side as Mainframe's screen displayed a super-sized version of the image on Strongarm's computer. It was still dark, but the resolution and size that Mainframe lent the picture allowed the hulking figure in the center to be seen with decidedly more detail. Almost everyone leaned forward or left their chairs to get a better look, then, as one mech, immediately wished they hadn't.

Grimlock had always been a large mech, but now he appeared to have had his metal skin carefully, surgically removed, then crudely stretched over a Titan-class's frame. Two raw, sucking wounds brimming with virus-riddled slime, ringed with rust, and crawling with - were those organic insects? - seeped fluid from his enormous shoulders. He wore the same kind of face mask he usually wore, except the ornate, oversized carved teeth sprouting from his cheeks seemed a little more realistic than they used to be and intermittently dripped oil and something a little lighter in hue - maybe Energon. Also, they moved when he talked.

The Dynobot commander had always been the color of a long-grayed corpse - this was an intentional choice to unnerve enemies on the battlefield - but now, the paint job and all of his terrifying upgrades made Grimlock look very much like some swollen, bloated revenant, freshly risen from the grave to exact a gruesome amount of bloody vengeance on some poor soul who'd wronged him in life. Optimus, normally unafraid of the biggest, scariest Decepticon warrior on the battlefield, found himself uncharacteristically praying that it wasn't him.

If his commanding officer's new appearance creeped him out, the Dynobot intelligence officer, Scorn - who'd shown up at the meeting as the Dinobots' liaison - didn't let it show. "General Grimlock, sir! We never doubted you'd make it. Oh, my . . . pardon my insolence sir, but what have the Decepticons done to you?"

"BAM! And what happened to your SHAZAM face?" Warpath added.

"Not . . . important," Grimlock snarled. He sounded even worse than he looked. "Dynobots . . . alive. Me am broad-cast-ing from Shockwave's Tower. South Pole of Cybertron. _Slag!_ Send them the coordinates."

"The South Pole? How did Shockwave manage to establish a base down there? My men just embarked on an expedition there not one lunar cycle ago. There wasn't a trace of that cyclopean lunatic to be seen!" Perceptor remarked as Grimlock's current coordinates appeared on Mainframe's screen.

The Dynobot Commander grunted. "No surprise. Shockwave has . . . con-nec-tion with Core bugs, mutated by Dark Energon. We figure entire complex come from ground one day, built under ice crust and brung up by bug king. Me, Grimlock's, men been watching Shockwave for many solar cycles."

Perceptor slumped minutely in his chair. "We . . . we _have_ been reading strange energy signatures in the polar regions for a while now. We assumed it was connected to the Core shutting down."

"And you eggheads didn't think to follow up on it?" Ironhide asked belligerently.

The maroon truckformer upturned his hands. "We've been a bit busy, Ironhide, with the Decepticon Army laying siege to our Nerve Centre and all that! All of our resources were spent either defending the _Ark_ or trying to find _him!" _He gestured tightly in Mainframe's general direction.

"ENOUGH!" Optimus yelled. "Grimlock, we've received your coordinates. Can you make your way to a GroundBridge, by any chance?"

"**No,"** Grimlock said, so forcefully it made the Prime do a double-take. "You Autobots talk, and talk, and talk. Complain about things that mean scrap. You no be able to get things done. Shockwave has a weapon, more powerfuller than Warp Cannon. Bigger than Trypticon. Even more importanter than lives of Dynobots. It called . . . the Space Bridge."

Jazz stood bolt upright. He suddenly looked very pale. "Oh man. The Space Bridge. Cliff and I - when we were snoopin' around in the Sea O' Rust, we came across this ancient structure in th' middle of an ol' palace. . . made for rippin' holes in time an' space as we know it ta bring th' Ancients closer ta uninhabited worlds. I - I thought we destroyed Shockwave's version . . ."

"There's already one up and running?" another officer asked incredulously.

"Naw, naw - well, there _was_, but Cliffjumper an' I tore it a new one . . . I had no idea there was anotha."

Grimlock nodded. "Yes. Us - er, _we_ \- saw it too, when we crash in Rust Sea. Shockwave be . . . ob-sessed with tower's design. This one bigger, maybe . . . seventy times the size? It hard to eyeball from here. Shockwave have coordinates for new world - one steeping - uh, me mean _rich_ in energy."

Jazz nearly vaulted over the table to reach Optimus. "Prime, I know what world Grimlock's talkin' about! We found all kinda references to it in the Sea. Th' Ancients catalogued it as a potential Cybertronian colony, an' Shockwave got all tied up with the place when he rediscovered the ruins. Jus' a moment . . ."

A hologram of a distant planet appeared over Jazz's arm, a world so gorgeous it took Optimus's breath away. There was a single great continent surrounded by pristine blue ocean in every direction, which was flecked with dozens of islands of all shapes and sizes.

Perceptor's second-in-command, Beachcomber, sighed. "It's . . . It's . . ."

"Beautiful," Jazz finished grimly. "An' it won't be _anything_ if Megatron an' his cronies get there first."

The Autobot Commander eyed the hologram in a matter that could be defined as _hungrily_ as the plan resolutely ingrained itself in his mind, and he knew that it would not fail. After all, failure was unthinkable. Today, he would save his people, or his name wasn't Optimus Prime.

"Very well. Grimlock, stay in contact. We will face this threat together."

But the Dynobot Commander just grunted again. "You never listen, Optimus. There is no time to sit around to talk of things we already know. Me, Grimlock, am taking the Space Bridge down _now_ \- and you cannot stop me. Goodbye, Prime."

He raised the massive sword that had previously been resting just out of frame, raised it over his head, and let it fall, destroying the device that he'd been streaming from. The image of Grimlock's twisted form dissolved, leaving only Wheeljack's shocked face on Mainframe's screen.

"This-this is the best chance we'll ever get, Optimus," he breathed. "We _need_ to take it."

There was silence in the maintenance bay for a full twenty-count, then Optimus spoke. He spoke quietly, but everyone in the room could plainly hear his words. "Quickly, then - Initiate the Exodus Protocol!"

* * *

Inconvenient.

Not the fact that the Subject had escaped. Not the loss of 68% of the base's personnel, either at the teeth and claws of the Dynobots or the wild insects that were flooding his sanctuary in numbers far greater than he had anticipated. Not even the fact that two out of three of his bio-organic lieutenants had failed to subdue Subjects 82-85 as the experiments rampaged through the lower levels of his research outpost. No, Shockwave had planned that chain of events from the beginning, tools to sharpen his charges' blades, hone their abilities to a fine edge by any means necessary. Sure, the Waruder King might find Shockwave's use of his best warriors to be a point of contention, but the one-opticked scientist did not consider _that_ creature to be a concern.

It was the third insect - the Kuwatgatrer, it called itself in the tongue of its people - having been deactivated at the mouth of the Waruder Hives that concerned Shockwave. Its pilot, Beet-Chit, was supposed to have been the Insects' greatest warrior-hero, but he, too, had fallen to the rage of the Dynobots. Logically, that meant that the former Autobot's next target would be Shockwave himself.

The pillar of light above him roared as it broke through Cybertron's upper atmosphere. Just as Shockwave had predicted, it was operating at full capacity, fed by the sea of Dark Energon beneath the planet's core, unraveling the tapestry of time and space itself. No errors reported. Everything was working perfectly.

Naturally, that was when _it_ happened. Shockwave's field was set at its maximum limit, encompassing nearly the entire control deck of his beautiful Tower. Weak. Spread as thin as possible, and that wasn't even taking into account the massive amount of energy discharging from an emitter the size of a city block situated right underneath his feet. He was an easy target, vulnerable and-

A whisper of movement behind him. A blast of hot air from a vent boiling over with rage.

The scientist hammered a distinctive button on his console, then whirled around as a chain of energy shot into his right hand. He let it loose and it crackled to life, wrapping around the legs of a monstrous robot that had, despite its best efforts, been imprisoned again.

Grimlock of Kaon yelled an inarticulate scream of pain and fury as the twin Boraya beams on either side of the control console activated and zapped his tortured form with focused beams of pure agony. Manacles lashed his arms to the control deck, and Shockwave's energy chain burned into his legs even as it held him securely in his place.

The Boraya emitters shut off as quickly as they'd come on. "Grimlock," the Decepticon Applied Sciences director acknowledged, "I expected far better from you, as a decorated general in the Autobot Army. Falling for such an obvious trap - clearly my experiments have truly taken a toll on your cerebro-circuitry, hmm?"

There was no answer from the Dynobot commander. He stood very still, seemingly heedless of any discomfort as he glared Shockwave down with an expression of the purest, most refined hatred that the latter mech had ever seen.

"I must say, I honestly didn't forsee you making it quite this far, but all the better for it! Your new master, Megatron will be quite pleased with you and your team's combat efficiency. I imagine you'll all become Phase Sixers, or possibly even members of his personal vanguard." His single eye momentarily glowed a little brighter - with pride or something a little deeper, no one could be sure. Whatever the case, the brief occurrence was something that was very out of character for Shockwave anyway. "Once you're successfully indoctrinated, of course, we'll send you to his new field base on the target world. With you at his side, the Decepticon Empire will flourish, spreading out across the universe for centuries to come! Now, sit, my pet, and don't make a fuss. I must inform my lord of our progress together."

He hit another button, waited patiently, interminably, for the signal to send, and finally saluted as a live hologram of the Decepticon leader's oversized head popped into being. "Lord Megatron! The Space Bridge is fully operational and ready to receive traffic, at long last!"

"Magnificent!" Megatron boomed. "Shockwave, maintain your post. You will be the unquestioned, supreme leader of our world for as long as our expedition lasts. When the _Nemesis _returns, our age-long foes will no longer be a concern, and my reign will last uncontested for eons!"

"Indeed, my lord," the Scientist said with a nearly undetectable lilt to his voice, as if he were humoring a sparkling. "I shall continue my research while you are gone, and see if I can narrow down the location of Starscream. He and his few remaining followers will be captured, alive, and kept for you to do with them as you please. I give you my word."

"Very good, Shockwave!" Megatron said, obviously pleased. For some reason, he seemed to be in an exceedingly good mood. Shockwave filed that away for later reflection. "And keep the home fires burning when I am away, yes?"

The cyclopean Decepticon's optic flashed. "Fear not, Megatron. Cybertron shall remain precisely as you leave it. Shockwave out."

As soon as Megatron's holographic head blinked into nothingness, an earsplitting, metallic roar erupted from directly behind him. A massive durabyllium-alloy manacle embedded itself into the console next to Shockwave's hand, causing him to draw a pistol from subspace.

"NO - ONE - CONTROLS - **GRIMLOCK**!" the Dynobot howled, and his monstrous form began to shift. In a matter of seconds, a bipedal reptilian robot stood in front of Shockwave with teeth like swords and a sweeping tail thicker and longer than the scientist's whole body.

Shockwave felt something stir deep in the pit of his cold spark - something that no longer had a place in his chest. Pride, tempered with a notable - and bothersome - amount of fear. Emotions? Now _that_ was wholly unexpected.

Before he could mediate further on the anomaly, a full jaw of straight, saber-sharp teeth clamped down on his weapon arm. He tried to pull the trigger, but his failing digits were far too slow. A purple flash ineffectually filled Grimlock's mouth as the enormous creature tore Shockwave's damaged arm clean from his body. Energon - _Shockwave's_ Energon - sprayed from the wound, but, strangely enough, all the Decepticon's sensors registered was a slight tug, followed by a warm sensation as his right side was washed with his own blood.

He was dimly aware of watching helplessly as his arm was actually _eaten_ by the beast of his own creation, another feeling like being hosed down with molten lava, and lastly, the unique feel of Grimlock's tail flying into his ribs with force enough to break a building into rubble; rubble much like the sparking chunks of what used to be the main control console that were now sailing along through the cold polar air along with him.

The last thing he saw with his one, static-filled eye before he succumbed to stasis lock was Grimlock, the mighty warrior, standing victorious over the burnt and shattered remains of the Space Bridge's regulation and control center. One of his creations had effortlessly destroyed another without a single thought to the contrary. Effectively, Shockwave's downfall, after all these hundreds of years of unwavering success, had been himself all along.

_How poetic,_ he thought as he fell, bleeding, burning, and possessing a number of internal injuries all at once. The Space Bridge, his magnum opus, began to melt down. A final pulse of light shot from the top of it, and disappeared into the clouds.

Then, everything went dark.

* * *

"Decks 6 through 10 have reached full capacity!" a tech shouted over the din. "Crew cabins in Block Alpha-Red also at max fill!"

"Overall power at 85% and rising!" another answered.

"Great! The Plasma Batteries have done their duty!" Optimus Prime said. He jogged over to a line of computer stations that had been monitoring the little things: the spatial anomaly now positively ID'd as Grimlock's portal, the state of the _Nemesis's_ launch area in East Iacon, the ever-changing ETD of the _Ark._ "How long until we can depart, soldier?" he asked the femme manning the latter station.

"It all depends on the launch crew, sir," she replied. "We're almost done loading the ship, but it's still not quite reached capacity yet. Should I send the boarding call out now, or wait for a few more breems . . ?"

Suddenly, all the lights in the nerve center went red. An alarm blared once or twice.

"Optimus Prime, sir! The portal Grimlock reported - it's just grown unstable!" a red-and-gold Autobot cried.

"Oh, no . . . surveillance shows greatly increased activity at the East Iacon launch site!" another reported. "SLAG! We just lost visual! Someone get me eyes on that compound, _stat_!"

At that moment, Medical Officer Ratchet approached Prime's right-hand side. "I hope you know what you're doing, Optimus. If not . . . well, we'll be personally responsible for everything that happens afterward."

Before the Autobot leader could reply, the lights unexpectedly flickered as a distant explosion rocked the _Ark_'s nerve center.

"Metroplex's been hit! It's the Decepticons - they're attacking again!" a young tech by the name of Jolt yelled.

Optimus turned and gazed Ratchet straight in the eyes. "Ratchet, you'll have to take things from here. I trust that you can direct operations, ensure that the refugees will make it to safety before we leave?"

"Of course I can, Prime - but where are you going, anyway?"

But the Autobot commander was already halfway to the door. "I am going," he said, "to see someone whom I should have visited while there was still time to spare."

* * *

The alarms blared, but Seaspray wasn't going anywhere. At least, not yet.

He stood on the banks of the Trannis Fork River, four rings below the _Ark's _fueling depot, and gazed down the tributary that had led so many of his friends to their deaths. It wasn't much - just a quarter-mile-wide river that flowed into an iron tunnel underneath a derelict pawn shop - but it'd been there since before there even _was_ an Iacon. Now, even though it was much shallower than it had been in its day before the Shutdown, it was still fast and deep, heedless of the rubble trying desperately to stifle its flow.

"I'm not ready, you know," he said, letting the words bubble to the surface as they'd always done. "I've never directed a major sea battle like you have. I've never won a decisive victory against impossible odds." He paused, listening to the continuous pinging and informational chatter coming from his wrist communicator. "I wouldn't even know where to start . . . Why me, boss?"

He tilted his head sideways and looked expectantly at his commanding officer. Splashdown kept his optics fixed on the river, boiling away, swift, unforgiving.

"I chose you to be my second-in-command, Seaspray, simply because there was no one else to choose."

The younger sailor was taken aback. His armor clamped tightly to his frame. "Gee, thanks."

"There was no one else more suited for the rigors of such a position," Splashdown clarified. "No one as strong, reliable, unmoving under pressure than you. I'm an old robot, my boy. I've seen plenty of fine seamechs come and go, fight and . . . and fall to the depths, but I have _never_ seen such promise in any other individual under my command. You blame yourself for these failures, for losses, Seaspray. You say you're the ballast of our little division, but you're clearly not to even the most untrained eye."

Seaspray scowled, memories of the latest failed incursion filling his vision. "Then what _am_ I, Admiral? What am I doing that causes so many of our best mechs to die on something as simple as a naval expedition?"

Splashdown merely frowned and emptied his pipe. "Sonny, losses are losses. This is war, after all. These are some tragedies that you just can't avoid. The true test of Primus's great game is learning how to turn those losses into victories any way you can." He gestured with the end of his pipe, pointing out the tunnel entrance. To Seaspray, it looked like a hungry, yawning beast that fed off of misery and excreted despair.

"Take that river pass, there, up against the walls of that iron tunnel. Yesterday, it's true, Ripcurrent and his group were ambushed a few miles out of friendly territory - but they sacrificed their lives so we could get an idea of the Decepticon situation outside of the neighborhood. Thanks to them, we now have a render of the exact specifications of the Decepticon camp under Nova Cronum. Their defenses. The number of personnel stationed there."

"And their weak points?"

"Aye. That Prowl fellow's already pinpointed several areas where we can strike. The 'Cons will be celebrating their grand victory of winnin' this little Space Race here. They won't be expectin' a second attack from the same direction."

The Naval Lieutenant fidgeted with his arm-mounted harpoon cannon. "Will that really work, though, sir? Who'll be escorting the Neutrals, again?

"Why, Ultra Magnus himself'll be leading the ground assault, son. I'd say that that infernal camp's as good as destroyed. In, ooh, little less than three vorns, if all goes according to plan, we'll mount the strike an' start getting out of town. D'you see? It all comes around, in the end."

Seaspray, despite himself, sighed. "No. We still lost hard, sir. Ripcurrent lost hard. No victory can make up for that."

"Well . . . you'll understand one day. Because what I was just spoutin' off about, about you thinking you're nothing but ballast? You're not. You're the anchor of our division. Grounded. Strong. Unbreakable. You'll see the fight through to the bitter end, no matter what; even if you spend the whole time bellyachin' about it. Remember the Creed, son. 'No depth nor tide . . ."

"'Can crush or corrode our pride,'" Seaspray finished. A ghost of a smile touched the corners of his optics.

"That's right. You'll get it sooner or later. Now, you've a ship to catch, so you should get moving! But first . . ."

From his hip, Splashdown drew his honorary Hydraxian broadsword and rested it on Seaspray's shoulder. "Seaspray of Yuss, do you swear to abide by the Primal Code and the Cybertronian Sailor's Creed, standing against all threats on land or sea?"

"I do, and I ask Primus to guide me," the Lieutenant recited.

"Do you swear to defend Cybertron and its people, no matter the consequences?"

"I do, and I ask Primus to guide me."

"And do you promise to never lose sight of your objectives stated above, even when the fiercest storm or the highest wave threatens to crash against you with the force of a Gnawfish's bite; or when the strongest foe has you lying helpless in the surf?"

"I do, and I ask Primus to guide me!" Seaspray yelled with renewed vigor.

"Then rise, Naval Commander Seaspray, and carry out your task with valor and honor! Go to the _Ark,_ son! Muster your new troops! Take to that gorgeous sea on the target world, and punch Megatron in the slaggin' teeth when ya get there! Now hurry! I'll wait for you, on this beach, when Cybertron is saved and the galaxy free of his tyranny! Go! Run!"

And so, the newly-decorated Autobot Naval Commander flopped heroically up the riverbank, occasionally glancing back at the lone figure contemplating his next move by the water.

"I'll make you proud, sir," he said to himself, and charged for the great starship.

* * *

Just outside the Central Spaceport, an army of civilians put their petals to the metal as they jockeyed for positions in a mad dash to reach Fueling Station Delta before everyone else. Broken-down mass transit systems littered the sides of the roadways, and dozens of refugees ran on foot on the shoulder.

Despite the rush, there was a sense of hopelessness to the whole race. Perhaps, deep down, all the participants knew there was no chance that they would make it to the _Ark _before liftoff.

And indeed, the great golden ship began to rise in the far distance. Scaffolding and loading towers fell away from the vehicle as a bluish glow illuminated her stern. Five massive rocket engines activated, one after the other.

Metroplex, the colossus of Iacon, shouted with fury as he swatted an entire platoon of Decepticons, just off to the north. Like those Decepticons, everyone tearing down the expressways were fighting a losing battle. Still, they kept driving, kept running, but every one of their efforts were in vain.

* * *

Optimus pushed through a crowd of Autobots as he ran. Much like him, they were trying to get somewhere before the launch, desperately seeking their objectives even as the _Ark's_ engines warmed up, but while they were trying to finish off any maintenance issues or load another crate of supplies, Optimus was searching for his beloved sparkmate, the reason he kept fighting when all the odds were stacked miles-high against him: Elita-1.

She was close. Optimus could feel her, but the chaos in the Fueling Station noticeably dampened the spark-bond. Not quenching it entirely - just making it that much more difficult to pinpoint his other half's location. Such a setback he could not abide by, especially at a time like this. The nearly tangible net of emotions and encoded messages flitting back and forth over the heads of the panicked crowd made it even more difficult. The _Ark_ was already boarding, but that did nothing to ease the congestion.

Then, just outside of the second loading bay, he saw her, directing foot traffic with a calm, yet urgent ease from her position on top of an overturned crate. She was as beautiful now as she'd ever been, even streaked with dirt, scrapes, and battle damage. Her reddish-pink armor almost glowed in the sunlight, and her posture was excellent - tense, ready for any possible eventuality, but elegant and polished nonetheless. Effortlessly perfect, but undoubtedly able to handle herself come the Pit or high water.

"Elita," Optimus breathed once he'd come within earshot.

His bondmate was surprised to see him and momentarily halted her traffic direction. "Optimus? I thought I felt you nearby . . . Shouldn't you be coordinating operations in the Nerve Center with the others?"

"Perhaps," Optimus admitted. "But first I needed to say goodbye to the most beautiful femme in all of creation."

A sad smile touched Elita's lips. "Ah, Optimus. Always such a romantic. I'd like to return the compliment, but we've both got far too much on our plates at the moment. Perhaps, in a lunar cycle or so, when you return with Megatron in chains and the Decepticon Army beaten, we can find some quiet place on Cathedral Hill and just sit for a while, yes? We'll take in the spires and the Chasm, and appreciate each other's company for the first time in ages."

Optimus sighed. "I'd like nothing better, Elita, but I fear that this is a mission from which I will not return. Our future together rests on the tip of a-"

"Orion!" the First Femme snapped, interrupting her sparkmate. "That's quite enough with all of your melodramatic Prime nonsense. My word to Primus's audios, you say something along these lines _every_ time you go out to battle, and you _always_ return with nothing worse than a few nicks and gashes. This mission will be no different and you know it."

The Autobot Commander was struck dumb, and his faceplate reflexively retracted in spite of himself. "I - I suppose you're right, dear . . ."

"Aren't we femmes always?" Elita interjected.

" . . . but . . . er . . . yes," he finished lamely. "I suppose that we'll all do our best, then. For the sparklings, and their sparklings, and for Cybertron itself . . ."

"Then that's all you'll need to do. That's all you've ever done," Elita pointed out. "Everything will all turn out, in the end. It always does, since the beginning of time itself."

"Always," Optimus repeated. "Goodbye, my angel."

"Don't be long, Orion. We need you back here just as much as we do out there."

The two co-Primes shared a kiss, heedless of the dark, sparking corridor, heedless of the dim sunlight filtered through an impenetrable atmosphere of war-born miasma, and heedless of the seething mass of people around them - at least for the briefest of moments. It was not a long kiss, but it was a good one and was still tingling on both of their lips long after they'd said their final goodbyes.

Optimus Prime closed his faceplate and strode regally through the crowd. Elita-1 stepped gracefully off of her crate and ushered the last family of refugees through the nearest bulkhead, slipping in behind them and drawing her blaster at once. The Decepticons were waiting, and the two co-Primes would not waste another moment.

And far below them both, the Trannis Fork River boiled away and began, ever so slowly, to sink into the oily sands along its banks. A new age - a new _generation_ had begun, and the River would see it through, as it had countless others throughout the many years of its existence.

This would not be the first. But it certainly wouldn't be the last, either,

FIN

* * *

**Author's Note: **Did you enjoy this new beginning to a story that I won't be able to finish for years at this rate? Any quibbles to share about the piece? Perhaps a typo that I missed? Well, then, be sure to leave a review - because I can't fix my work unless YOU tell me what's wrong with it! Thank you.

-The Doctor (Do)


	3. Exodus Part Two: The Wind and the Fire

**Author's Note:** Merry belated Christmas and happy 2020, everyone! I don't have much to say at the moment, but please, enjoy the story!

-The Doctor (Do)

* * *

200.

That was how many souls managed to board the great spacecraft, in the end. Perhaps Optimus should have consoled himself with the fact that not a single civilian would be in harm's way, but it felt _wrong, _leaving so many people behind with the other half of Autobot Command while he himself spirited away in an escape vessel - even if the _Ark _was mostly a diversion.

_One thing's for sure, _Optimus thought grimly to himself. _When they _do _attack, Megatron and his men are going to get a very nasty surprise._

He looked around the bridge, committing to memory the faces of all the hardened warriors around him. The bridge was filled to capacity with soldiers and pilots to spare. Everyone was tense, on edge, as the multicolored portal ahead glared down at all of them like the judgmental eye of some great space monster. Megatron would be expecting a lightly-armored refugee vessel crewed by desperate family mechs and femmes with no more than a few military personnel to protect the precious cargo of souls. What he'd find would be an Electrum-coated ship filled to the brim with most of the greatest soldiers in Iacon - but even then, would it be enough?

Wheeljack's Engineering division had not been idle in the days since the siege on the Central Spaceport. They'd managed to repair most of the damage dealt to the ship by the leviathanesque Warp Cannons - although Decks 5 through 7 and a cargo bay were still uninhabitable as of yet - and on top of that, they'd accrued a small stockpile of the miracle substance Electrum to paint the _Ark's _most vulnerable sections with. The vanishingly rare compound would repel any attacks for as long as the ship's substructure would hold up, but there was only so much of it over a city-block-sized surface, and there were still about one-and-a-half square miles of unprotected deck along the length of the golden spacecraft . . . and that wasn't even counting the other flaws in the _Ark's_ slapdash reconstruction.

No matter. The _Ark_ may have been a rusty tin can, but it was the _Autobots'_ rusty tin can, and Optimus believed in every one of the soldiers that had made it on board.

"Barrage!" a voice exclaimed, jarring Optimus out of his thoughts. Ratchet was checking up with one of the pilots. "It _is _Barrage, isn't it?"

"Actually, sir, my name's Regolith," the 'bot in question answered. He was Devisunian, with utterly massive shoulders and a peculiar sparkling silver color scheme. "I _used_ to be called that, though, right up until I found out that I shared my name with one of Shockwave's attack dogs. Never again, I'll tell you that much."

"Barrage," Ratchet continued regardlessly. "How's the situation with the _Nemesis? _Do we have optics on the thing at all?"

The Devisunian heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Swear to Primus, I - no sir, there's been no sightings of the 'Cons, either in an escort vessel or their ship itself, ever since we broke atmosphere. Wherever they are, though, we can be almost certain that _they_ can see _us,_ and they're gaining fast."

Ratchet grimaced. "I can't imagine the kinds of stealth fields that . . . that _thing's_ been equipped with."

"Yes sir. Our pulsar cannons are primed and ready, though, and gunners are on high alert. We'll be ready to fire the nanoklik they reveal themselves."

"And what of the portal? Can we cross the event horizon before the Decepticons catch up to us?" Optimus inquired, approaching the pilot's seat.

"That's a negative, sir," another tech replied. "Wormhole's still about a half vorn away at our maximum speed, and decaying rapidly. At this rate, it may close before we even get there!"

Now, Ratchet scowled. "Either way, we've got to prepare for the worst. I'd bet my left servo that Megatron's watching us right now, waiting for the best opportunity to attack. Who knows what he - what _Trypticon -_ has got up his sleeves? There's one Pit of a fight coming. I can feel it in my fuel tank."

"So can I, old friend," Optimus conceded. "Let's just hope we'll make the portal before the _Ark's_ made into a space-wreck."

Unknown to all, a large, dark shape moved silently outside, lurking just below the ship's main viewscreen. It flexed twice, long, sharp claws ejecting from its housing, and waited patiently for a signal.

* * *

Sure enough, someone really was watching the golden starship as it powered through the vast gulf of space. _Several_ someones, actually, and each one with malicious tidings toward the _Ark_ and all of its occupants.

Megatron stood in the bridge of his own warship, glaring imperiously down at the Autobot vessel through a wide window on the observation deck. A messenger approached in vehicle mode, transformed and handed him a technical readout, then bowed and left as hastily as he'd arrived.

"HA! Electrum-coated? What a waste of precious resources!" he barked, skimming through the document. "So THIS is the so-called _Ark?_ The Autobots have placed their entire future - all of their diseased femmes and weak sparklings - in nothing more than a glorified, rust-pocked cargo hauler!"

"Aye, sir," Full-Tilt, the captain of the _Nemesis, _agreed. He was obviously enjoying the novelty of hobnobbing with the Supreme Commander of the Decepticons, especially since he'd never really been anything more than a mere scientist before. "Major General Onslaught has already pinpointed twelve ideal points of attack, I hear."

"I'm not surprised that he has! A well-placed meteor strike could cripple this sad rusthulk. But now, we must mount our attack! We shall tear the _Ark _apart, deck by sorry deck, and use its wreckage to construct our new fortress on the Target World! Air Commander - are the assault vessels ready for deployment?"

Slipstream of Vos allowed a thin smile to spread across her well-sculpted face. "Yes, indeed, Lord Megatron. Several have already been deployed, and are awaiting your orders. The _Hellswarm, _the _Sentinel,_ the _Silent Blade - _you have options, sir."

"Good. Already, Slipstream, you prove vastly more competent than your predecessor. Proceed to the launching bay and rally your troops! We attack within the breem!"

"All hail Lord Megatron!" the three officers announced, saluting as one. Megatron waited as they all filed off one by one until only he and his second-in-command were left on the observation deck.

Characteristically, Soundwave had remained respectively silent for the entirety of this brief meeting, mentally coordinating comm-webs and critically studying the Autobot starship to their port side. His Cassetticon minion, Laserbeak, was perched on his shoulder where she could often be found. Like her creator, Laserbeak appeared to be studying the _Ark _as if it were a tasty petro-rabbit in a wide-open field, noting its weak points and categorizing areas of attack with a predator's discretion.

"_Ark_ defenses: minimal, yet potent," Soundwave reported in his signature distorted polytone. "Six photon cannon, three on each side. High-intensity laser cannon mounted on bow. Firepower: sufficient to cause long-standing damage to _Nemesis."_

Megatron said nothing. This data had been included in the data readout, but he believed it was fruitful to let the Intelligence Commander arrive at his own conclusions.

"First priority: disable or destroy cannons. The Autobots will be powerless to stop us once their only weapons are taken offline."

The Decepticon Commander's optics flashed. "And have you formulated a plan of attack beyond their defenses?"

"Affirmative," his SIC responded after a pause.

"Good. Ready your battalion. You will lead the first wave of the assault."

Like the others before him, Soundwave saluted and left his superior meditating on what was to come.

* * *

It was almost a relief when the first tow cable finally decloaked off the port side and smashed into the uppermost level of the bridge. Before then, the tension had built and built, making the soldiers edgy and paranoid. About 15% of the ship's power was being spent in the weapons deck as the ship's too-few number of gunners scanned the empty void of space above them for any sign of the Decepticon battleship.

The first thing all the bridge personnel did was not drawing their weapons, but instead grabbing hold of the nearest solid element and holding on tight. Optimus drew his double-bladed war axe and rammed it into the floor, the Energon blade cleaving through the deck like butter. Chairs whipped into the breach and one or two unfortunate Autobots lost their grip, flying past the heads of their compatriots on their way to oblivion. One brave soul caught on to a railing near the _Nemesis's_ tow cable, only to get hit in the face with a large chunk of metal and flung into the abyss.

In the space of five seconds, the ship's defense computer, _Teletraan,_ caught on to the new threat and redistributed the _Ark's_ artificial atmosphere accordingly, effectively sealing the breach. Then, the attack started.

Autobots fell back to the ground, groaning, and summoned their personal weapons from subspace. The first enemy trooper made their appearance - a blue-and-gray mech with the emblem of a Decepticon Captain gleaming on his right shoulder. Even as he found his footing, more Decepticons filed in behind him, dashing along the length of the tow cable to get inside. The ship shuddered.

"ENGAGE ZE AUTOBOT SCUM!" the Captain shouted. Optimus put his back to a nearby computer bank just as bolts of white-hot plasma shot over his head. The computers shorted and smoked as they took the brunt of the fusillade.

Some anonymous Autobot soldier had the idea to throw an EMP Stun grenade at the invaders - a wise choice, given the environment. A flak grenade or an incendiary bomb would only have made things worse for everyone. Optimus wrenched his axe from the ground and drew his signature weapon - a heavy infantry ion rifle with a standard 15-round clip. 3-round burst. Reliable. Efficient. Packed a Pit of a punch.

The EMP detonated on the upper deck, and the Autobot leader sprang into action. He stood from behind the computer console and squeezed the trigger, taking out two Decepticons before they could even get over the complete interruption of all their systems brought on by the grenade. He put the rifle on the nearest flat surface, grabbed his axe, and soared up to the 2nd-floor catwalk with the help of the rocket booster embedded in the head. Artillery filled the air, multiple shots finding their marks in the sparking bodies of the Decepticons.

Optimus didn't waste any time. Hefting his axe in a matter that could be described as regretful, he slashed down and to the right, lopping off a foot soldier's leg at the hip. His next strike was a full-arm jab to the vulnerable neck of the Decepticon behind the first, which temporarily paralyzed the already-stunned raider. He collapsed to the ground in a spluttering heap.

That, plus all the other gunplay taking place on the bridge, left only one enemy left - the captain. Optimus lunged out with the butt end of his weapon, knocking the commander's hand-held beam rifle from his hands. In midair, the Autobot leader turned the axe, whacking his opponent upside the head with the weapon's still-hot rocket booster. The Captain staggered toward the tow cable that had brought his troops there. Optimus closed the gap and pushed the Decepticon even further with the weapon's shaft. His opponent, dazed, tried feebly to fight back but was still too weak to put up a fight under Prime's overwhelming strength.

"Get - off - my - ship!" Optimus growled, then reared back and delivered a truly massive headbutt directly to the Decepticon's faceplate. The Captain flew backward, breaking the ship's artificial atmosphere for a moment, and was sucked outside.

"Inferno, Grapple - help me with this boarding claw!" he ordered, winding up for another swing. He could see the cable outside now, illuminated by the wormhole's light and crawling with Decepticon soldiers.

CRUNCH! went the cable's exposed wireframe as Optimus's axe slammed into it. The blow was followed up by Inferno, the Praxian firefighter. Sharing a moment of mutual understanding, the two truckformers locked eyes and set to work. It seemed as if they both knew exactly where to hit the cable to cause the most damage, and they soon had developed a rhythm. Strike, pull back, strike.

"One moment, gentlemechs!" the last Autobot said, running to the rescue as a formidable-looking apparatus unfolded from his gun-arm: a black lifting claw, to match the one that was currently leaking fluids all over the deck and screeching a high-pitched, metallic whine. Grapple slammed his newly-transformed appendage into the tow cable's ripped and torn pivot coupling and wrenched it from the ground with a shout.

"All together now!" he yelled, and all three mechs struck the cable with their shoulders, forcing the injured, leech-like structure outside _Ark's_ artificial atmosphere.

"They'll be back. Stay vigilant. You two, Brawn - stand guard over this breach. No one gets in without taking heavy fire - and, if needed, casualties."

"As you say, Prime," the black Demolitions expert said, hoisting his belt-fed machine gun as he passed Optimus.

Alarms were blaring and emergency lights were spinning red; both of which sensations Optimus was getting very sick of after the non-stop turmoil of the last few days. He leapt from the upper level of the control room and landed with an understated _whump_, picking up his rifle as he did so. _I could use a nap,_ he thought. _To be honest, we could all use quite a lot of things to that note._

"Teletraan! Give me a status update!" Ratchet was, characteristically, already trying to dredge up some order, some greater information, from the attack. Optimus pushed his way through the crowd and stood by the CMO's side. A flash of yellow caught his eye, and he noticed that the Espionage private, Bumblebee, was already up and fighting with everyone else. Optimus frowned. Why wasn't the Scout still relegated to bed-rest somewhere away from all the action?

The main terminal at the front of the bridge flashed a reassuring white. "DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE. STAND BY FOR FIELD REPORT . . ."

* * *

"Keep pushing forward! Do not let up even for a moment!" Soundwave ordered as another Autobot fell with a sparking harpoon embedded in her head, courtesy of the Decepticon SIC's Electro Bolter. His combat shield spiraled to life with an electric ZZAP just in time to deflect an incoming rocket into the _Ark's_ thick hull. For a brief second, he faltered, but shook it off just as quickly and continued the advance, squeezing off a few shots here and there.

The last Autobot in this particular corridor fell to a Decepticon raider's hand axe, which the bright red truckformer buried in his adversary's gut, then blew their head off with a point-blank cannon blast. The battle was won, but Soundwave had other directives.

"New order: continue throughout this deck. Neutralize all Autobots and NAILs by any means necessary. Taking prisoners: accepted. Complete annihilation: encouraged. Fall out."

"Yes, sir!" came the response from several individuals. Soundwave nodded curtly and ducked into an adjacent corridor without further ado.

_Primus, boss, I'm boooored,_ a voice spoke in Soundwave's head. _When will we get to come out? It's cramped in here, an' I wanna crack some skulls already!_

_Patience, Rumble,_ Soundwave replied. _You will all have your chance soon._

He peered around the next corner and caught a glimpse of an ammo silo. The sounds of battle echoed through the _Ark's _halls, but none of them were as noticeable as the loud, constant _boom, boom, BOOM_ of the starship's sparse weaponry. Conducting a quick sensor sweep of the next room, Soundwave was surprised to learn that there were no Autobots manning their stations, loading shells into the silos. A foolish mistake on their part - no premeditated preparation for battle could make up for negligence of duty in the heart of a crisis. _Although_, he had to admit to himself, _I would not expect any more from a skeleton crew of exhausted warriors._

"_Soundwave!" _a voice barked over his comm system. Megatron, of course. "_The _Ark's _cannons are taking their toll on the _Nemesis_. They've dispatched a battalion's worth of fully-trained fliers - this is no refugee vessel!"_

Had Soundwave been a different mech, he may have cursed. He'd felt something was wrong during the entirety of the battle - there were just _too_ many armed Autobots, and far too few Neutrals filling the halls. Wouldn't the Autobots, being what they saw as holy warriors always in the right, try to fit as many impoverished citizens into the ship as they could?

"I concur," he stated concisely. "Current position: just outside Autobot weapons deck. The cannons will fall within the next quarter breem, Lord Megatron."

"_Good! After you've finished, make your way to the engine deck. We will rendezvous there, and take the ship from its roots, as it were. If all goes well, we will be finished before we arrive at the Target World."_

_A rather conservative estimate,_ Soundwave thought to himself, but acknowledged his leader anyway and went dark. His chest compartment opened with a _whirr_ and deposited a single jet-black time bomb into his waiting hand, and he approached the nearest ammo silo. The combined factors of the weapons bay's solitude and the distant noises of battle were, strangely enough, pleasant.

He was just attaching the second-to-last bomb out of a set of six when a door hissed open on the other end of the bay. A single Autobot wheeled out into the bay in vehicle form, carrying a MicroTrailer full of cannon rounds behind itself, and transformed into a rather nondescript male-pattern robot form.

Soundwave hadn't been noticed yet, but it was only a matter of time and luck - both of which factors the Decepticon SIC found overwhelmingly unreliable. In a motion he'd practiced millions of times, he tapped a button on his right shoulder and spoke the activation codes that would mobilize his most effective stealth operative.

"Ravage, eject! Operation: Single Target Silent Neutralization!"

In a fraction of a second, Soundwave felt the datapack-form individuals in his chest compartment rearrange themselves among a fine network of tiny tracks and pistons until the Beastformer spy in question was at the forefront. Exploding out of his creator's chest, Ravage hit the ground running, darting back and forth around crates as he approached the doomed Autobot, who barely had a chance to shout a cry of surprise before Ravage's sharp teeth found his exposed throat.

The final bomb was primed, the scene was set - all the Communications officer had to do was recall his kin and leave. But the sounds of battle had intensified behind him, and he quickly reviewed the last few exchanges over the Decepticon comms-net - an angry Autobot brigade had doubled back through the _Ark's_ twisting corridors and overtaken Soundwave's rear-guard. By sheer chance, the fighting was at its heaviest right where he least wanted it - right on the path of his escape route.

"Buzzsaw, eject! Find us a secondary escape route!" he ordered, nonplussed. Ventilation shafts, side corridors, maintenance tunnels - there were options that he'd noted from the second he entered the weapons deck, but he didn't trust the unfamiliar layout of the Autobot starship. What seemed like a perfect path could theoretically put the Communications mech and his underlings even deeper within an overwhelmingly hostile ship. He cocked his Electro Bolter, preparing for a fight if all else failed.

Of course, that was the moment when the same door on the other side of the bay decided to open again. A bulky red Autobot of the same build as Soundwave entered, sipping from a cube of high-grade Energon. In his other hand, the Autobot was holding what Soundwave immediately recognized as an Electro-Scrambler marksman's rifle, and he looked ready for a scrap.

The red mech noticed the crumpled body of his ally the second he entered, along with the big cat standing over it with fresh oil dripping from his jaws. His cube dropped to the floor and shattered, and a cloud of energized fuel shot from his lips.

"Soundwave!" the Autobot Communications Officer, Blaster, remarked indignantly, brandishing his rifle.

"Lieutenant Blaster of Durax," his nemesis responded calmly, his voice modulator filtering out any spite that may have leaked through his mental guard. "I'd hoped that I wouldn't have to dirty my axe . . . again . . . with the Energon of a fellow Crucible on this venture."

Blaster spat a glob of sizzling coolant at Ravage, who snarled and slunk back to his master's side. "Let's spare the theatrics, punk. This time, I'm not gonna be caught off guard by one'a your mangy _pets_. Who brings their kids on a spy mission without giving them _real _training, anyway?"

There was a half-second's worth of silence. "My Cassetticons are far better warriors, spies, and Cybertronians in general than your _spawn_ will ever be."

"Oh, really? Why don't we test that theory, then?" the Autobot replied with a smirk. "Eject, Steeljaw, Rewind, Grand Slam, Raindance, Ramhorn - let's ROCK AND ROLL OUT!"

* * *

"All Fliers and Aerialbots, Attack Pattern Crossfire! Blow that last tow cable!"

For the past few minutes, the Autobot Air Guard, led by Silverbolt, had waged a heated battle in the space between the two mighty spaceships. They'd tried their hardest to destroy the network of boarding cables that lashed the _Nemesis _to the _Ark _like some kind of grotesque interstellar parasite, but more just kept coming. The troops on the Autobot ship were being overrun by the never-ending stream of Decepticons, and it was the Air Guard's responsibility to ensure that the flow was stemmed as much as possible.

Silverbolt dodged a Decepticon dropship. That was another aspect of the fight that just ended up complicating things further. The Decepticons had dispatched what looked like their entire armada to escort the _Nemesis_ through the wormhole, and the full-sized warships were giving both his troops and the personnel fighting atop the _Ark_ a hard time. He saw a few infamous attack vessels in the mix - the _Sentinel, _the _Dark Omen, _the _Hellswarm -_ and shuddered.

Nevertheless, they would make it through. The Autobot Air Commander banked left and fired a bolt of electromagnetic energy from the tip of his nosecone - the ability that he was named after - that struck a nearby Decepticon gunship. The spacecraft's running lights powered off, as did the engines, and one enemy fighter was quickly left behind, drifting along in space outside of the shared artificial atmospheres of the two massive starships.

A flash of light caught Silverbolt's attention as the final tow cable was severed by his brothers-in-arms, tearing itself apart link by link with a chain reaction of explosions that reached all the way up to the _Nemesis_. Thanks to the aforementioned intersecting atmospheres of the two starships, he heard the piercing, almost live-sounding screech as the cable detonated, and a deeper, vibrating sound that came from the Decepticon spacecraft itself.

_Ah, the beauty of controlled chaos,_ he thought to himself, transforming into robot mode to better view the spectacle. Suddenly, his comms system crackled to life with the smooth voice of an individual who wasn't in his battalion . . .

"Silverbolt! I'm gonna need a lift over here! It's a matter of life an' death!" it said. The Air Commander could just about hear the sounds of a pitched firefight in the background. "It's Optimus Prime - he's taking on a combiner all by his lonesome!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but we're a bit busy over here!" Silverbolt sighed in exasperation. "We're outnumbered as it is, and more 'Cons keep coming. If me and my team break away even for a moment, I'm afraid we'll lose the fight - and if we lose, _everyone_ does!"

An explosion sounded over the comms system, followed by a stifled curse and a rather rude suggestion as to where Megatron could place the Decepticon Autocannon on the Engine Deck. "Forget that noise, Silverbolt - I'll bring the combiner down myself. I just need someone to airlift me offa the Engine Deck an' get me over there quick, then you can get back. What d'ya say? Help a batch-mate out?"

Something sharp brushed up against Silverbolt's back, causing him to exclaim in pain. His wings seemed to be intact, but he could feel that there was a huge nick in one of them. He whirled around and fired several tracer bombs in the direction of his assailant - a heavily-armed red-and-black Decepticon Seeker - who was forced to do a few uncomfortable-looking acrobatics to shake them off. "_Argh_ \- fine. Sit tight, sir. I'm on my way."

"Keep fighting, Aerialbots! We'll see the other side of the wormhole soon enough!" he cried, not allowing his pain to show through his words. Then, the Aerialbot Commander transformed and soared towards the stern of the _Ark,_ unaware of either the oily black cloud slowly starting to take shape behind him or the tan Seeker who quickly peeled away from the fighting and followed in his contrail of Energon and spent naphtha-kerosene.

* * *

Meanwhile, just outside of the Engine Deck, things were not going well for Optimus Prime.

He flew across the Electrum-coated expanse of the _Ark_ and into a cooling unit, which ruptured and spewed fluid all over his legs. He felt a stinging sensation in his hip joints and deduced that he must have been cut up pretty badly from the unit's torn metal, a condition that was only exacerbated by the foreign liquid flowing into his sensitive machinery. He looked up, saw the massive shape charging toward him, and rolled out of the way just as a titan of a Decepticon plowed straight through the cooling unit and everything else behind it, coming to rest in the ruins of a covered walkway.

"CRUSH AUTOBOT LEADER!" Bruticus bellowed as he freed himself from the walkway. A massive, terrifying beast, made of several outwardly normal Decepticons, Optimus knew for a fact that the creature had never once lost a battle in which it had participated. Its components were simply too intelligent, too used to working together as a team, and too well-versed in combat strategies of every description. Granted, they did seem to go down a few intelligence points when combined, but the combiner was still so effective, it was the only member of its kind to ever earn the rank of "Maximus" in the Decepticon Army.

But military ranks were the last thing on Optimus's mind as the gestalt tore its left arm free of the walkway's wreckage and aimed the point where its hand should have been at him. He could see the heat shimmer emitting from the combiner's forearm, smell the nitroglycerine in the artificial atmosphere, and threw up his personal combat shield just as a wave of fire engulfed him in burning hatred.

Immediately, the shield's grip became uncomfortably hot, and Optimus had but a split-second to rethink his decision before a massive foot cut through the maelstrom and slammed into it, shattering the life-saving piece of armor and sending the Autobot Leader careening across the deck. In desperation, he reached for his ion blaster and experimentally fired off a half dozen rounds, all of which bounced harmlessly off of Bruticus's chest armor.

"SO . . . YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO GUNS? GOOD! MY TURN!" the giant boomed, and pulled out a massive blaster rifle. It was gold-and-blue, with tasteful dark red accents - and it was clearly made out of an average-size Cybertronian. Prime's back touched another structure on the outer hull of the _Ark. _He weighed his options and found that there was nothing he could do. Rolling forward, underneath the gestalt's legs - too risky, and Bruticus was too powerful. His ion rifle had slightly more effect on the behemoth than wish power would, and his shield was currently laying in large puddles of melting slag on the deck. He momentarily considered unveiling his ultimate weapon, but before he could come to a solid conclusion, the massive sonic cannon fired with an ear-splitting report. A huge portion of the _Ark's_ superstructure imploded in on itself, sending parts flying out into the vastness of space.

But Optimus was unharmed. Aside from some medium-grade audio damage and the obligatory wear-and-tear from the prior skirmishes he'd been in, his diagnostics reported nothing out of the ordinary.

The goliath combiner was staggering backward, roaring in rage as he clutched at his burning cranial unit. Instantly, a small, light mech dropped to the ground beside Optimus with a nimble roll, holding a fully-upgraded standard-issue Scatter Blaster shotgun. It was First Lieutenant Jazz, and he was ready to fight.

"Prime," he said, acknowledging his commander with a nod.

"Jazz, it's good to see you," Optimus replied gratefully.

"Ain't it always? I heard you could use a hand," his second lieutenant replied. "What say we separate this mess o' Decepticreeps?"

Optimus drew his axe. "Not to put too fine a point on it, that's the best offer I've heard all day."

The combiner shook his head violently and clenched his fist, now fully recovered from his injury. "BRUTICUS GRIND YOU INTO METAL DUST!"

"I'll ventilate his noggin some mo', Prime - would it be too much to ask if you kept him busy on the front lines?"

"Jazz, really, what do you think I've been doing for the past quarter-breem?"

Optimus transformed, his axe folding up and storing itself in the bed of his truck form, while Jazz skirted off to Bruticus's right side. Like a steel fist on wheels, Optimus shot forward, only slightly too fast for Bruticus to react, and slammed into the combiner's meaty legs. His opponent stumbled, and Jazz scaled the colossus using little more than his trusty grappling hook.

Prime sprung out of his alt mode with his axe in hand and drove it deep into the leg that would have turned into the Decepticon Munitions General, Swindle. He heard a faint, high-pitched whine as he threw himself backward, hanging off of his battleaxe, using it as both an anchor point and leverage to whirl around Bruticus's legs. Energon flew - some of it Swindle's, some of it Bruticus's.

_Interesting. Are they not one and the same?_ Optimus found himself pondering, even as Bruticus roared in pain and fury. Jazz had taken up position near the gestalt's neck.

Finally, he wrenched the axe from Bruticus's leg and drove it into his opposite foot. The Energon-powered blade sliced straight through the Decepticon's heavy armor and buried itself in the _Ark's_ deck plating. One last time, he transformed, revved his mighty engine, and caught a whiff of ozone as his armored trailer materialized from the interdimensional phenomenon known as subspace, seamlessly connecting with his hitch. Rocket boosters engaged. 360º rotational wheels cranked against their stops and Optimus Prime spun once, twice, and flung the trailer into the gestalt's wounded legs.

Jazz hadn't been idle - in the time it took Optimus to take out Bruticus's legs, he'd driven a long, diamond-sharp sword through a tiny chink in the gestalt's armor, and followed that up by emptying his Scatter Blaster point-blank into its vulnerable cranial unit. Bruticus's helm was thick and well-armored, but there was only so much that could be done against the high-velocity incendiary rounds of the Cybertronian shotgun.

Bruticus toppled over like a skyscraper in a cataclysmic storm, his head burning, a sword jammed hilt-deep in his neck, his legs mangled and bleeding the shared lifeblood of his six components.

The Autobot Special Operations Director hit the ground with a precise roll and transformed, whirling around to face his foe. "Silverbolt - light 'im up!"

In a singular garbled yet still commanding voice, like a drill sergeant gargling with syrup, Bruticus shouted "Combaticons, disen-"

He never finished the deactivation code. A silver Autobot jet streaked overhead, accompanied by about a dozen other Fliers of all shapes and descriptions. A fusillade of firepower erupted from their wings and struck the giant dozens of times, blanketing his body with smoke and fire. He tried to struggle to his feet, but that only made him an easier target - with a great rending of metal and electronic shrieking, the mighty Decepticon gestalt lost his footing, broke the _Ark's_ rapidly thinning artificial atmosphere, and flew off into space, back toward the distant planet of Cybertron.

"Holy slag . . . we did it!" Jazz exclaimed, but the victory was short-lived. An Autobot jet - the same one that had landed the first strike - plummeted from above and landed just a few dozen feet away from Optimus, immediately unfolding into the shape of a medium-sized red, yellow, and silver Cybertronian. Prime's spark clenched as he noticed the frightening amount of thick black-violet fluid spurting out of a ragged, blackened hole on the Flier's back.

"Optimus, I'm sorry - I'm sorry . . ." Silverbolt, the leader of the Aerialbots, groaned.

"No! Silverbolt, stay focused! We'll get you fixed up!" Optimus said. A group of five Fliers hit the deck behind the injured Air Commander, all but one resplendent in various shades of white, red, and black. The other one was Aerialbot Medic Breakaway, the adopted brother of the five young mechs that made up a sizable portion of the Autobot Royal Air Division's command team. All of them were obviously in a great deal of pain - though their skills in aerial combat had prevented them from getting physically damaged in the raging firefight, they felt every quart of lifeblood that was gushing out of their spark-bonded leader.

"Clear a path!" Breakaway hissed through his teeth as he produced a medical kit from subspace and a battle-worn Energon Repair Ray folded out from his hand.

Silverbolt twitched weakly, his gaze dim. "I shouldn't have done - stupid mistake - don't let them-"

"Eyes on me, soldier!" Jazz commanded. "You ain't going anywhere!"

Breakaway's hands flew into overdrive, desperately trying to save his leader as the light faded from Silverbolt's optics, but even as it happened, he lost dexterity in his fingers. The other Aerialbots - Skydive, Fireflight, Slingshot, and Air Raid - collapsed to the ground, shaking convulsively as their brother inexorably went limp in Prime's arms.

Jazz sighed, his head dropping. "He's gone. C'mon, Optimus. We gotta keep moving."

"No . . . not yet," Optimus murmured.

"Prime, we do not have any time for this!" the smaller mech shouted, surging to his feet. "Silverbolt's dead an' there's plumb nothin' we can do about it! The folks on the Engine Deck need our help, an' _they're_ still with us. They won't be much longer if we can't bail 'em out 'cause we're too busy wringin' our hands over a fallen soldier. Do you know how many Grays I passed just as I came to help ya?"

The Autobot Commander didn't respond, instead gently propping Silverbolt up on the structure that he'd been thrown into just a few brief minutes ago.

Continuing in a calmer, softer tone, Jazz laid a hand on Prime's shoulder. "We can mourn our dead later. But now, we need to focus on the mechs that are still among th' living."

"You're right, Jazz . . . I - I forgot myself. Make sure the Aerialbots get safety, then meet me on the Engine Deck. We've almost reached the portal."

The portal was looming large over them, colors, unlike anything they'd ever seen, undulating in mesmerizing shapes around the rim. It was beautiful, terrible, and nearly mind-breakingly maddening all at once.

"We . . . we can still . . . fight," Skydive forced out as he rose shakily to his feet. "I can . . . help . . ."

"Absolutely not, soldier. You and your brothers are out of the fight. Fall back to the medbay and get yourselves a slab immediately. That's a direct order. Jazz, go with them. I will assist Wheeljack and his mechs."

Jazz nodded. "Fine. Don't get yourself shot, 'kay? We'll need some leadership once we get ta the Target Planet in one piece."

Optimus only inclined his head in response, then turned back to Silverbolt's corpse, which was already fading from its sleek polished silver to a dull, lifeless matte gray. He noticed that the Aerialbot was bent double to his right and took a moment to adjust him, placing his hands in his lap and ensuring that he was snug in the structure's shadow.

_When will this war end, _Optimus thought. _How many more lives must be lost before we can finally unite, and move forward as a single race?_

* * *

"SOUNDWAVE!" the Autobot Communications mech roared, bringing his fist crashing into his adversary's mouthplate. Soundwave stumbled backward and almost tripped over one of the Cassetticons doing battle throughout the room - he couldn't tell which one it was, or even if it was his own.

Blaster had always been the one mind Soundwave could never quite read - the red-and-yellow Crucible was too chaotic, too unpredictable even for Soundwave's telepathy. His mind was littered with ideas and plans that never connected in the ways one expected, and whatever space left over was filled with the blazingly-sequenced notes and hard-hitting rhythms of some hyper-music track from Cybertron's Golden Age. That left Soundwave with few advantages outside of his own unenhanced melee abilities. He'd been holding his own until now, had landed a few impressive hits on Blaster - but now, he was slipping up.

"I will NOT - LET - YOU - hang my friends out to dry!" the Autobot cried, punctuating every word with a hook to Soundwave's midsection. "Steeljaw, deal with this fool!"

As fast as lightning, a dark yellow Beastformer broke away from the fight and set into the Decepticon SIC. Soundwave felt the beast's teeth cut into his throat, heard the savage snarling, and watched his hand move feebly upwards in a dazed attempt to cover his face, but he felt nothing but fatigue seep throughout his whole body. His Cassetticons clamored in his head, all but shouting at him to fight back, shake it off, get up, do _something. _Like moonlight, his thoughts shifted to the past, his triumphs and mistakes, his gains and his losses. He thought about Ratbat, mentally prodding the damaged, cauterized point where his firstborn's bond used to be. Next to it was an even older wound that had been even rawer than Ratbat's, buried underneath hundreds of years of detachment and war. Soundwave was tempted to just let his life slip away underneath the Autobot Beastformer's jaws . . .

_The mission._

No. Others were counting on him - Megatron was counting on him. To finally put an end to the Great War, the Autobots must be destroyed . . .

He snapped online, surprising Steeljaw. An inhibitor mechanism fell from his ravaged throat, and the purest, loudest, most discordant noise tore itself from his vocoder.

For a moment, the _Ark's_ weapons deck shook against its own frame. The shells being fed into the six artillery cannons rattled in their massive magazines.

Blaster and his operatives fell to the ground, clutching at their bleeding audios. Not even the Autobot Communications mech was prepared for the sonic weapon integrated throughout Soundwave's body to fire. The tables of combat flipped almost immediately, and the deafened Autobots found themselves helpless before the receiving end of the Cassetticons' weapons.

Soundwave stood, one hand at his throat. It was a wet and messy wound, and he was concerned about leaking the pain to his creations. He could see that they were already suffering intense discomfort; Ravage was shaking his head, trying to focus, Frenzy's face was twitching uncontrollably. He had to complete the mission. Then he would seek care.

A final rectangular device shot from his chest compartment. Soundwave took it up in his hands and manipulated it, unspooling wires and unfolding certain pieces until he was holding a modified magnesium DetPak, graded for extensive Demolitions use and ready to go.

Moving deliberately and with purpose, he planted the bomb on the last turret magazine and primed it, linking the six explosive objects directly to his wrist communicator. With only a single handshake protocol, it was ready to blow.

He approached his rival with Electro Bolter in hand, bending over Blaster as he did so and resting the tip of his next harpoon on the Autobot's leg. The limb was heavily armored, but it wouldn't matter at this range. Blaster knew it too, and his blue optics widened. He lunged forward, and Soundwave fired.

The electrified harpoon went straight through Blaster's leg and punched deep into the plating of the weapons deck. Somewhere below them, hooks and barbs opened on the ceiling of the next block, securing itself very firmly to the top of the _Ark's_ cargo hold.

Blaster screamed as his body was hit with several thousand volts of electricity, sending his body up in an arc. His Cassette-bots squirmed with him, although the pain they felt was much diluted from what their carrier was experiencing.

_Cassetticons, you must fall back,_ Soundwave ordered through a silent comm. _Get yourselves to safety. Assist the others. Leave me here with the Autobot. With luck, I will find you when this is all over._

_Father, no!_ Glitch, ever the caring individual, pled as he approached. _Let me heal you - at least get you back on your feet-_

_Glitch, _Soundwave said calmly, yet forcefully. _I do not require repairs. I am giving you all an order - join the raiding party, and leave me behind. Do as I command._

The Cassetticons were quiet, but Soundwave could tell they were on edge. _Yes, sir._

Blaster had stopped screaming at this point; he was venting heavily and quickly. His minions quickly shook off the pain and raised their weapons. The Decepticon's optics fell on Ramhorn, a massive, bright-red Jugger with missile racks attached to his flanks. Currently, the Beastformer was eyeing Soundwave up with nothing more than pure hatred, pawing the ground as he waited for some kind of command.

"You - slagging - 'Con . . ." Blaster growled through gritted teeth. He was smoking from the chinks in his not-inconsiderable armor plating. "You can't . . . blow the mags . . . too close . . . you'll be incinerated with the rest of us . . . "

"Possibly," Soundwave replied, his voice unmodulated, raspy, and filled with static. Was that his voicebox, the vibrating mechanism that he was holding? It was difficult to tell on account of all the Energon and oil. "But I will be able to rest assured . . ." he flipped open the compartment on his wrist communicator, optics darting over the blinking, red EXECUTE button in the center of it all, ". . . knowing that I have taken you with me."

Blaster's face momentarily went slack in an expression of dull surprise, and he started wildly scrabbling at the floor, away from the Decepticon SIC. "Slag, he's really gonna do it, you guys! Run! GET BACK! GET CLEAR!"

Soundwave slammed the button with his opposite hand, enjoying how the Autobots turned tail faster than a startled petro-rabbit in the brief delay it took for the signal to travel. He activated his old combat shield and dropped into a defensive stance, not really expecting it to do much against the fiery maelstrom that instantly followed. As stasis lock overwhelmed him, sweeping him off his feet with the force of a nuclear explosion, his last thought was of his children, his Cassetticons - the things that had made his long, storied life worth living.

After millennia of constant war, cruelty, and exhaustion, Soundwave of Harmonex was finally at rest.

* * *

Just one deck above, however, several mechs were anything but restful.

Skydive hadn't taken the death of his brother well, and although he was in prime fighting condition on the outside, his innards felt like someone had hollowed him out with some kind of massive spoon. He was wracked with nauseatic convulsions, shivering and trembling the whole while, but still, he insisted on helping out around the Logistics Deck.

The computing room was currently being used as a makeshift medical bay, mainly because the "official" medical area was closer to the Engine Deck than anything else; and as such was under siege by the Decepticons. Logistics Deck was at the forefront of a massive battle between the Autobots and their age-old foes. Wounded personnel were almost constantly being rolled in through the aft entrance and the sound of gunfire was a constant companion. The Aerialbots were meandering around in various states of debilitation - Fireflight had gone completely catatonic as soon as Jazz had taken them there, and was laid out on a cot nearby. The other three were fighting to stay upright and online even as the ship rocked back and forth.

Another two Autobots were brought in by battle-scarred soldiers. One of them was missing her entire left arm - it looked to have been blown off in an explosion - and hemorrhaging glowing fluid all over the floor. The other was lifelessly flopping back and forth in his emancipator's arms, his chest almost wholly crushed in by some heavy melee weapon - probably some type of hammer. The words WASH ME were stamped about two inches deep into the unfortunate Autobot's metal flesh.

Skydive drew himself up. "Ah, slag - We've got a priority over here! I'll take the femme - someone get an E-double-R on this poor mech, ASAP!"

He'd have to stem his patient's leakage. That was for certain. And even though he wasn't a doctor, he at least knew how to perform some basic field repairs. Maybe Breakaway would have some advice to give - that is, if he wasn't incoherent.

Skydive was twenty feet away from an open medical slab when the ammo silos detonated. Unfortunately, the exploding flak shells were much closer - their path to the _Ark's_ six cannons took them through a channel right under his feet.

The Aerialbot second-in-command hardly felt his demise. Neither did most of the people in the medbay, really. Those near the outermost walls of the temporary clinic were not so lucky - some suffered horribly, burns over ninety-five percent of their forms, for up to a quarter-hour before ultimately expiring.

* * *

All hope was lost on the Engine Deck.

Even as the ship tore itself apart and the portal loomed large over it all, Chief Autobot Engineer Wheeljack stood his ground under a Technicolor sky. The Airborne Division had recently taken out most of the _Nemesis's _cannons, but that only brought a tiny degree of respite as Decepticons just kept coming through the Engine One Maintenance Gate.

Wheeljack was nearly out of experimental grenades, his men were utterly exhausted, the Mobile Turrets someone saw fit to bring with had all been destroyed, and even Perceptor from the Science Division was out of ammo. The situation was not ideal for the soldiers of Iacon.

"We're not going to be able to hold them much longer," the Science Division Director stated during a brief period of relative calm. He and Wheeljack knew each other well, having served side by side in the infamous Wrecker Company. Both mechs had a good understanding of the other's strengths and weaknesses, and Wheeljack knew that if Perceptor was concerned about their problems, he should be too.

"'Figured pretty much the same thing," he grunted. "But we can't just keel over an' die right here! They're countin' on us ta keep the 'Cons away until we make it through, an' I'll be reformatted into a sofa before I let Prime an' the others down!"

Perceptor turned his gaze upward. "What are the odds that the Airborne Division could grant us some assistance?"

"Not good, I bet - the 'Cons' aren't holding back anything up there. Looks like they've emptied every hangar and runway in the South just to keep us busy."

"And their infantry troops just keep coming. Meanwhile, we've been defanged, crippled, and robbed of anything that could feasibly grant us an advantage. By Adaptus, we don't even have the metaphorical high ground!" the Scientist lamented, making a sweeping gesture in the general direction of the massive Decepticon ship looming overhead.

"Well - they've gotta have some kinda field setup in there, eh?" Wheeljack speculated. He was beginning to get an idea. Unfortunately, it was a very bad one that could probably lead to his death, the death of his soldiers, and the capture of the point they'd struggled to hold for so long. "A teleporter, an Armory Recreator, a Communications post - something. Something that's givin' them the edge."

Perceptor nodded. "Obviously, yes, but what are you getting at - LOOK OUT!"

Wheeljack ducked. A sniper round almost gave him a new nose piercing, whizzing by his earfins and slamming into the wall right behind him. Decepticon soldiers began to pour out of the steam obscuring the Maintenance Deck from view, and the battlefield erupted into gunfire once more.

"We need to push them back!" Perceptor cried. "Let's try the Floron Maneuver!"

His Engineering counterpart was impressed by his sudden suicidal urge. Both of them being former Wreckers, they each understood exactly what was at stake.

"Out in a blaze'a glory - y'know, I kinda like it!" Wheeljack said as he reached to his hips and brandished his best pair of battle wrenches.

They relayed the command to their respective departments. The Autobots under their twin commands responded wearily, but each one of them had steely determination burning in their guts, even in the face of their deaths. Just as they were ready to charge one last time, however, the Engine Deck went strangely silent.

"Please, allow me to join your little party," a deep voice rumbled from behind. "I've got an axe to grind with these Decepticons."

There, in all of his glory, stood Optimus Prime in his robot form, holding his signature Energon War Axe in one hand and a huge, smoking plasma cannon in the other. A cheer went up from the Autobots despite the harsh conditions, despite the still-raging firefight, and despite the wormhole's crushing finality.

Optimus, Wheeljack, and Perceptor rallied the troops and they stormed down the incline, engines roaring just as loudly as the dying wormhole before them.

FIN

* * *

**Author's Note: **Wow, do I hate the poor Aerialbots or what? Any Flier fans out there, I promise that it wasn't intentional . . . that your favorite characters have to go through so much in every one of these stories of mine. Purely coincidence, I swear!

Did you enjoy the fic? Hate it? Well, if you've got anything you want to share, leave reviews ~ because I can't fix my work if YOU don't tell me what's wrong with it! Thank you for your time.

-The Doctor (Do)


	4. Exodus Part Three: Rage and Muscle

**Author's Note:** I will not lie, the video game Fall of Cybertron directly inspires a large portion of this chapter. I've mixed things up a little, excised most of the original, climactic final battle, but heavy similarities do still exist, and at one point two characters directly quote the game. As per the usual, I do not own any of what follows below. There aren't even any OCs to be found in this particular chapter. That being said, enjoy the prose.

* * *

Of all the things the Decepticons weren't expecting, Optimus Prime leading a wave of freshly-invigorated warriors on an apparent suicide mission was somewhere close to the top of the list. Bolts of violet plasma streaked into the Autobot ranks. Some soldiers fell; a few volleys were deflected off of the Autobots' forcefields. Then, the two factions met each other.

There was a great rending of metal. Pained screams and defiant shouts filled the air as Energon blades carved into the metal flesh of the Decepticon guard. The Autobots were outnumbered two to one, but what they lacked in munitions and manpower they more than made up for in renewed vigor. No army would ever just latch on to their ship, murder everyone aboard, and commandeer whatever was left to further the conquest of galaxies!

Optimus was at the vanguard, wielding his Energon axe in one hand and a massive plasma cannon in the other. The Decepticon ranks stayed well out of range of his whirling axe, which set them up to be eradicated by the wide-sweeping blasts of plasma that issued from his cannon. At some point, he ran out of ammunition in his clip and, tossing it to a nearby Decepticon grunt who toppled under the unexpected weight, settled on driving further into the horde.

Wheeljack was having some difficulty keeping up as he dueled with a ground unit wielding a long laser-edged combat knife. His twin wrenches sparked, deflecting a nasty slash that probably would have opened up his chest, but the strike left his adversary open. The jaws on his wrenches opened up as the Autobot Chief Engineer rapidly closed the distance, snaking under his opponent's guard and sending his right-hand wrench into the Decepticon's ribs. The Decepticon grunt flinched, back straightening as the pain hit him, which ended up presenting his vulnerable neck to Wheeljack. A single high-torque jerk of the twin wrenches, and it was over.

The supposedly-noncombatant scientist, Perceptor, finished off his own adversary with a glowing green javelin. Very few Decepticons remained standing, and the ones that did quickly surrendered or were cut down by their foes.

Steam poured out of the Engine Deck at an alarming rate, breaching the ship's atmosphere and quickly dispersing in the cold vacuum of space. Wheeljack couldn't help but notice that the air was rapidly becoming thinner, more difficult to breathe, as they grew closer to the portal. The _Ark's _finer systems were getting overtaxed. Frankly, he couldn't blame them, not after the strenuous activity in the face of the Decepticons' attack. Not too much longer and the atmosphere would deplete itself entirely, and that concerned him. Cybertronians didn't need to breathe - not in the conventional sense, after all - but ex-venting from an exhaust port would get real old, real fast; especially with the vacuum looking to tear every scrap of O₂ from the combatants' airbags. That could be messy.

He locked eyes with Perceptor and their leader and attempted to speak_._ The wormhole's now-audible roaring tore the words from his vocalizer, so he tightbeamed a collection of brief words. _We need to move. Now._

Optimus nodded. _Roger that._ _I'll take point._

Perceptor brought up the rear as the three mechs moved into a defensive formation. Together, they brought up their shields, physical or otherwise, and moved cautiously into the steam billowing from the engine deck. About a half dozen Autobot soldiers fell in around them, bolstering their little strike force even as they passed into the thick, opaque clouds.

* * *

It was warm and slightly wet within the Maintenance Gate, an unnatural silence enveloping them as they passed into a relatively calm alcove in the ship's structure. Currents of air flowed around them as they pushed through, listening for any auditory clue that might reveal the locations of their enemies.

There - a stifled gasp off to Wheeljack's right. He glanced off to the side and quickly cycled between infrared and visible-spectrum. As he suspected, nothing immediately came to him - the muggy steam threw off both of his checks. There was one thing he knew for sure, though. The Science division soldier that had taken up position on his right flank was no longer there.

"Slag," he muttered to himself. His palms were slippery. He shifted his grip on his wrench and turned his back to Optimus, who was still barely visible, a series of strong red lights cutting through the smog. "Someone, respond! Perceptor! Does anyone copy me?"

A blur of movement tore past him, drawing his attention. The rearguard was gone entirely at this point, all of them having been incapacitated - or worse.

"Heads up, Optimus. We're bein' hunted," he said nervously. He tilted his head to better view the Autobot Supreme Commander, but came face-to-face with a massive gray artillery cannon instead, glowing from within with a harsh purple light. The other end of the cannon was braced against Prime's back, but then _it_ happened far too fast for either Autobot to react. An explosive report echoed off the walls of the Maintenance Gate as the kickback sent Prime flying into the Engine Deck proper. It took Wheeljack a moment or two to realize that he hadn't been as lucky as his leader. His gaze dropped to the smoking hole in his lower torso, and a second later, the rest of his body followed the motion; he sank to his knees as his limbs became heavy. He suddenly realized just how tired he'd become after all these long, grueling days of combat and stress.

Only then did the steam part a little for him, allowing the Chief Engineer to make out the shapes of grievously wounded and dying soldiers taken off guard by the Decepticon Leader's attack. Perceptor was among them, driven to one knee with his own spear through his throat. Still alive. A . . . a skilled medic could still save him. Ratchet could still save him. But was he himself as lucky as his Science Division counterpart had been?

The consuming emptiness in his torso said otherwise. He struggled to stand up again, but couldn't. It had been such a long solar cycle.

Shoulda_ stayed behind with the others, _Wheeljack thought as he was taken by blackness.

* * *

Optimus's chest ached. He'd not felt the fusion cannon against his back until it was too late. The whole experience had happened so fast, he hadn't even had a chance to react to the field intrusion his sensors had reported. Even so, he wasn't focused on the situation he'd found himself in, at least, not yet. His thoughts were firmly fixed on the wellbeing of his men, and he feared for their lives. If he'd learned one thing from the eons of conflict, it was that soldiers were the true heart and soul of any force, not the people occupying higher ranks such as himself.

"I see nothing's changed since our last meeting, Optimus!" a deep voice boomed. Megatron strolled out of the steam clouds, arms held wide. Everything about him seemed to convey an attitude of the utmost ease. "Look at you! Even now, as we stand on the deck of your own starship, surrounded by your _own_ mechs and your _own_ defenses, you're still here, crawling on all fours, groveling before me like an ashamed Antillian bumble-puppy!"

Optimus struggled to his feet, ignoring the dull ache in his chest assembly. If he was worn down and exhausted from days without sleep, he didn't show it. "Hardly. I'm giving you one chance, Megatron. Get back in your _Nemesis._ Go back to Cybertron. You will not corrupt yet another world with your race's incessant warmongering. We - the Autobots, the Neutrals - are merely trying to survive."

The Decepticon Leader chuckled. Evidently, the _Ark's_ atmosphere hadn't quite depleted over the Maintenance Deck. Even so, the two faction leaders nearly had to shout their platitudes at each other. "_Our_ race. And I thought you Autobots were supposed to be the open-minded ones. Your _former_ leader, Zeta Prime, and Nominus before him, always made a point of pushing that envelope. Funny, how they were always the first to profit off of our suffering, no? I'm not talking about my Decepticons, of course. Remind me again - where did you work, toiling cycle after cycle with no time to pursue your own dreams, before I found you? And now look at you - leader of the _noble _Autobots, an almost-unheard of prestige for a mere truckformer. You should be thankful, Optimus - _our_ war has liberated not only the disposable class - _my_ people, _my_ kin - but the lives of you and your fellows as well. You. Are. Welcome."

"You call this liberation?" Prime retorted. "A war that's been raging for longer than millions of Cybertronians have been online? Endless death? Endless pain? Endless destruction? You've become the very monster you set out to kill, and you know it. Just look at the Games you've subjected your POWs to." It did not escape the Autobot's notice that the two mechs were now circling each other, nor that his adversary had adopted a subtle defensive stance.

"I call this a means to an end, Autobot - and at least we haven't been chased out of the one place on Cybertron that will still have us. You may be willing to accept defeat, but I don't believe your civilians will be quite as willing to roll over and show their yellow undercarriages as their 'defenders' were!"

Megatron lashed out, a double-bladed Tironium infantry sword shooting out of its sheath and aimed at Optimus's gut. The Autobot Leader went on the defensive, instantaneously bringing up his axe - in short-range Energon weapon form - and parrying the strike. The eight that came after were just as quick, but he had a counter prepared for every last one.

During the melee, he noticed a tightness in Megatron's shoulders, a whiteness to the edges of his burning optics. Despite being about six feet taller than Optimus, arguably more skilled in combat, and for all intents and purposes in a more bloodthirsty mood, the Decepticon Emperor was scared. While Optimus couldn't say if that was because of the Titan attack that had happened the last time they'd been face to face or something else entirely, it was a weakness he intended to exploit.

He thrust one hand into subspace while Megatron dodged a stab, pulling out a sword nearly as large as Optimus was tall and swinging it at his foe's head. Megatron backstepped, lost his balance as the ship lurched, and converted into his formidable hover-tank form.

"The Corona Glaive," he hissed. "Pathetic. You've resorted to looting museums and churches, and you expect to defeat me with a rusty replica of a weapon pulled from a sparkling's bedtime story? It likely doesn't even work anymore, if it ever did at all."

Optimus's eyes flashed. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. Why don't we find out?"

A salvo of plasma erupted from the black tank's central turret. Optimus ducked into a combat roll, converting into his own alternate mode as he did so. His engine revved one last time and he flew across the Deck towards his opponent. They collided with a force that sent Megatron flying off of his maglifts, causing both of them to revert to their base forms. The Corona Glaive unfolded from Optimus's truck bed and into his hand, cleaving through the _Ark's _deck with a fairly unpleasant screeching noise. This sound, however, was mostly covered up by Megatron's roar of fury and pain as his right foot became anchored to the starship's deck, the sword serving as their connection point.

"AAARRRGGH! COME - HERE!" he cried, planting one massive, clawed hand around Optimus's neck and batting his raised axe away with his free hand. He followed this up by threshing the Autobot Leader's head, hooking the red-and-blue truckformer with a stout fist to the faceplate, then burying his spiked elbow into the back of his foe's battle helm. Three repetitions of this later and Megatron decided to change tactics, driving his knee into the vulnerable midsection of the Autobot until he felt something break. He wasn't entirely sure if it was his own ornamental armor or a vital component of his enemy's internal systems, but he fervently hoped for the latter; even as he transforned his right arm into a fusion cannon and blew the Autobot Leader across the Engine Deck.

"Rrgh . . . Not bad . . . for a part-time librarian. Perhaps you should have spent more time in the Pits!" Megatron taunted as he jerked the massive weapon out of his foot and tossed it away from Optimus.

"And perhaps _you_ should have spent more time in the library!" The Autobot swung his axe, now in its two-handed Battle format, and met Megatron's sword halfway. Energon ran into his eyes as the two combatants strained, forcing him to recoil only after it left an irritating chemical burn on the surface of his sensitive lenses.

That paled in comparison to the pain Optimus felt immediately afterward. Two long gashes opened up on his leg armor and drew mech-fluid, momentarily driving him to his knees. Megatron laughed, a cruel, mocking sound, and stabbed his sword through the Autobot's arm - impaling him to the ground as Optimus had done to him.

"And how do you like it, Optimus Prime?" he cackled before rearing back and kicking his foe in the face not once, not twice, but three times. The sword left Optimus's arm as quickly as it had entered, and Megatron raised the damaged blade over his head, determined to end the Primal Lineage once and for all . . .

Only for the _Ark _to tear itself apart beneath their very feet. The Decepticon leader fell to his knees before his enemy, who summoned some last reserve of strength against all odds and disarmed him of his sword with an ancient Circuit-Su maneuver that had existed since time immemorial. Before either of them knew it, Optimus Prime was on his feet behind Megatron, Energon axe buried in his shoulder plating and a black infantry sword rammed through his chest.

A horrible sound tore itself free of Megatron's vocal processor as the deck they were standing on imploded, sending them hurtling into the hungry abyss. His eyes took on a sickly purple glow as his emergency reserve of Dark Energon coursed through his veins, and he detached another long, curved sword from its place, securely fastened to his back.

As the two leaders soared into the decaying wormhole, a strange quiet fell over them. The universe seemed to open for just a moment, spilling every instance of themselves from throughout the Multiverse across space and time. Megatron grew closer to Optimus, yet at the same time, it was like they'd never been farther apart. A sword, or perhaps an enormous five-fingered, clawed hand, flashed through whatever passed for the air between dimensions and buried itself hilt-deep in Optimus's gut before passing through the molecules that composed him.

It was an excruciating experience for both combatants. Infraspace was not meant for any organism, not even the hardy race that called themselves Transformers. Their minds felt as if they were being stretched to their breaking point as memories that weren't theirs, motivations that were alien to them as the new world they were fast approaching crammed into their extremely unprepared minds.

But then, a shape manifested in the near distance - a massive, golden shape - and the two faction leaders were hit head-on by it as space expanded back to its natural state once more.

Once everything was back to normal, it became all too obvious what the golden shape had been - the bridge of the _Ark, _in a state of utter destruction as the artificial atmosphere sparred with the endless vacuum of space to win control over its occupants.

"No . . . I will never be denied!" a wretched shape screamed as it dragged itself across the floor to reach one of the only chairs still intact in the entire bridge. "I AM LORD MEGATRON, and I will NEVER accept defeat!"

Optimus Prime groaned in agony as his internals threatened to evacuate themselves via the gaping wound in his stomach. As he strained to stay online, he remembered a cynical observation made by one of his comrades at the Iacon Precinct Police Department during his most important case: "_Abdominal injuries - never good. Always messy. I pity whatever poor sap this used to be._"

But he simply could not give up. The Matrix would not allow it. He would not allow it. For the good of all Autobots, he would see his mission through.

When the ships finally crashed, everyone in the mighty Cybertronian vessels were knocked into a deep stasis lock that would keep them incapacitated for a very long time. Optimus never felt the scratches that Megatron's claws left in his faceplate. Megatron went offline just as he came within inches of ending Prime's life.

Neither of them would know these things until much, much later. Millions of years later, as a matter of fact.

* * *

A lone deer grazed in a grassy valley between mountains. It was a still, calm night. The northern stars twinkled in the dark sky, and the black ocean glittered in the middle distance under the light of an autumn moon. The air was cool, but not uncomfortable quite yet, with none of the vengeful winter winds that felt as if they physically tore at the animal's skin; even through the thick coat that it had already started to grow out. In all, it was a perfect night for being out and about, for gathering energy to last through the cold season.

Until, that is, the sky began to scream.

A single bright orange star grew more fervent, angrier, as it came closer and closer to the mountain range rising out of the nearby woods. A drone sounded and only got more earsplitting as the anomaly grew ever closer.

Soon, the shapes - for there were two of them, each wreathed in fire and surrounded by massive pieces of wreckage like a disintegrating meteorite, got close enough for anyone to perceive their respective colors under the full moon. One of them smashed full-force into a peak in the range, shattering both the mountain and the enormous _thing._ If the deer had been alarmed before, now was the moment where its primitive mind exploded into pure terror. A shower of boulders and wreckage littered the formerly-pristine valley, and the animal was forced to run for its life.

As it ran, a rectangular piece of wreckage adorned with some type of sigil - red with clean, squared edges, heavily damaged and reeking of ozone - impacted the ground directly in front of it, spraying the panicked animal with upturned soil and a few small, sharp rocks. The majority of the rubble peppered the downhill slope with deadly shotgun-esque projectiles, but for now, the deer was safe, coming away from the encounter with nothing worse than a few bruises and cuts. It didn't see the object's collision with a lonely mountain by the sea, although the bright white flash that illuminated the valley was pretty hard to miss. It didn't note how the second object streaked farther south on a trajectory destined to wind up in the ocean. It was only worried about its immediate survival, and anything else was, put simply, a non-issue.

Indeed, the deer would survive that night and even thrive later on. But its distant descendants would not be nearly as lucky.

Because, under the lonely mountain - the volcano that would eventually come to be known as Mt. St, Hilary . . . something had survived.

FIN


	5. The Morning After

**Author's Note:** This chapter's pretty short in comparison to the others. I initially conceptualized it as a single chapter made of the two parts that I will be publishing, but time constraints ended up tossing a nice big wrench into that plan, combined with other logistic difficulties. Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Skywarp woke up in a stasis pod, electricity flowing through his joints as he slowly regained awareness.

_Fighting. The ship's breaking apart! Where's 'Cracker? Gotta - gotta get to safety, Primus, we're all gonna die! I'm - I'm - huh. _

_I'm in a stasis pod. _

His optics came online. He was peering through clear fluid with a greenish tint, suspended within a constraining vacuole of the nanobot solution. Data readouts flickered weakly on the inside of the synthoplasma glass that separated him from whatever lay beyond the pod.

_Don't remember getting in a stasis pod, _he thought with a burst of clarity. _Don't really remember anything after we crossed the wormhole, in fact. Why . . . why would I ever get in an _Autobot _pod . . ._

The train of thought didn't go much further than that, because, with a disconcerting lurch, the pod entered an active state.

"SUITABLE ALTERNATE FORM LOCATED. PROCEED WITH SUBJECT REFORMATION?"

Skywarp was suspicious, but he didn't see any other way out of his predicament. He spoke, his voice filled with static from lack of use. ". . . Sure. Why not? I'll need to leave sooner or later anyway . . ."

Even as the nanobot fluid swirled around him in tangible torrents and reconfigured his body, he reviewed the technical specifications of this new alternate form and the world outside. He wasn't by any means an expert stasis-scientist, but something out there filled him with trepidation. Namely, the heat. Initial scans of the environment inside what had once been the Autobot _Ark_ showed that the bridge's ambient temperature was toasty, to say the least. The alternate form - a flight-capable, vaguely delta-shaped aircraft scaled for beings about a fourth of his robot-mode height - wasn't made for such climes, meaning Skywarp would have to beat feet once his reformation was over. Of course, the temperature wasn't immediately lethal to Cybertronians, but it probably wouldn't have been a great idea to sit down and play a nice game of solitary Triad.

On the bright side, it seemed like the _Ark _had come to rest in the center of an active volcano and the rest of the planet wasn't nearly as hot. All Skywarp had to do was get a good idea of his surroundings, figure out what had happened to the other Decepticons in his battlegroup, and leave.

"Piece of cake," he muttered as the reformation entered its final cycles. The fluid drained, and he could feel the heat radiating through the pod's synthoplasmic window. "Let's do this, then. Open pod access door."

"COMPLYING," the computer responded, but Skywarp didn't stick around to hear it. He launched forward on newly-revitalized legs, staggered a little bit as the heat hit him, and, despite himself, took a moment and stretched. He'd been asleep for a long time.

The air was hot and close, filled with the kind of particulate matter normally found in volcanic smoke. It threatened to enter his airbags via his main cooling diaphragm, leaving microscopic punctures in the sensitive material of his inner workings as it went. He ensured his filters were working at prime capacity - probably would have been a better idea to do that beforehand, but that ship had sailed - and stopped breathing normally. Instantly, his vents kicked into operation, as did his more porous cooling systems. He began to sweat oil through the tiny seams in his armor plating.

"Phew . . . all right, time to get down to business," the Seeker muttered to himself.

He crossed the room, locating the active main computer terminal, and prayed that the shoddy Autobot machinery had survived the tests of time for however long it had laid dormant. Its name was embossed in tarnished gold on the center console - _Teletraan One._ He decided to take a gamble - Autobot tech had revived him. Maybe, just maybe, the software would still be addled enough to help him out some more.

There were dozens of other stasis pods like his, situated on trapezoidal tracks that ran just behind the deck plating, between the ship's superstructure and the interior of the room. It seemed that all of them save one - his own - were occupied."Let's see . . . Teletraan One! That is your name. Yes. Give me a full readout on the remaining stasis pods in this room, yeah?"

"A-A-A-AFFIRMATIVE. WELCOME, D-d-DECEPTICON SKYWARP."

Skywarp flinched, freezing in place despite the volcanic heat seeping in from the starship's long-broken viewscreen. "You know I'm a 'Con? Um . . . you gonna launch countermeasures or blast me or chuck a Guardian Robot at me or something?"

"NEGATIVE, DECEPTICON/SEEKER/AERIALBOT SEEKER SKYWARP. NO - NO - NO HOSTILES DETECTED. TELETRAAN SYSTEM DOES - DOES NOT - DOES SUPPORT SUBJECT: DECEPTICON: SKYWARP. DECEPTICON PROGRAMMING NOT C-C-C-COMPATIBLE WITH TELETRAAN MORAL SOFTWARE. NO DECEPTI-TI-TICONS DETECTED. WELCOME, DECEPTICON SKYWARP."

"Wow. How long were we out? Time's really taken its toll on you . . ."

"ERROR. CHRONOLOGISTICS DAMAGED. NOTIFY AN ADMINISTRATOR IMMEDIATELY."

A grin appeared on Skywarp's face. "Sure, sure thing, buddy, but I need to know this stuff ASAP, all right? Can I have a full readout on the - heh - _my_ fellow Autobots suspended within this room's stasis system?"

"AFFIRMATIVE. ONE MOMENT, PLEASE . . ."

After a few uncomfortable seconds, during which Skywarp began to get used to the stifling heat and ash, the system responded. The Seeker had to wipe and reboot his optics before what he was seeing really set in.

"Primus, that ain't right . . . no way can this . . . Slag," he whispered in disbelief. What the computer was telling him simply couldn't be true.

"Welp, looks like I really do have some work to do."

* * *

A clawed, gray hand clamped down on the side of a stasis pod. Joints popped and sparked as they were utilized for the first time in many years; and the owner of the hand rose from the nanobot bath, dripping with the greenish fluid as his optics powered on.

Heedless of the oppressive heat, Lord Megatron of Kaon arched his back as his armor slid into its final position. He lived again - but where had the spearhead of the Decepticon Empire found himself this time?

He surveyed the room as multiple other stasis pods hissed open and their occupants stumbled out on unsteady legs - all of them Decepticons in an Autobot realm. It was a small group, a little bit larger than the standard twelve-mech Decepticon raiding party, not including him, of course. Memories shot through his processor as it booted up. White-hot rage consumed him as he remembered the last thing he'd been doing before stasis lock had claimed his consciousness - reaching for the Autobots' new Prime as the wretch had himself gone into stasis lock, trying to keep his internal organs from spilling all over the _Ark's_ captain's chair.

He'd been close. His claws had nearly pierced Optimus's throat. He'd been but a few breaths too late. It wouldn't happen again.

"Lord Megatron!" the Seeker Skywarp hailed as he came spiraling in through the _Ark's_ smashed viewscreen. "I - _ack_ \- WHOO! Excuse me, sir - it's *kaff* the smoke. And the ash, I guess. Don't like it, whatever it is. Bad for the intakes."

"Soldier - do I look like a Paradronian medical technician to you? No. I don't have time for your childish complaints. Speak your piece." Megatron intoned, in a voice as heavy as the grave.

"Beg pardon, sire. I just wanted to say it's nice to see everyone up and running again. Also, if we don't get out of here soon, we may all die. Excruciatingly, as a matter of fact."

"He's right, Megatron," another Seeker, this one a blue-and-silver to contrast Skywarp's black and purple highlights. Thundercracker. An Outlier, and a rather capable warrior on top of that. Mildly less unbearable than Skywarp was. "The ash Skywarp was talking about has the capability to shred the lining of our internal workings if we hang around venting it, even if we use non-conventional ways of homeostatic cooling. Moreover, my sensors are reading heavy volcanic activity in this sector. The eruption that must have awakened us was only a precursor - we're in the path of another, ah, a much larger one that could spell our doom if we're not quick about it."

Megatron stormed over to the nearby Teletraan terminal, which was displaying a rudimentary map of the _Ark's _immediate area created by a SkySpy drone, probably during the reformatting process that had resurrected the Decepticon battlegroup. He searched for a site outside of the blast zone, one that would serve as a field camp until the eruption blew over. Finally, Megatron stabbed a finger at the screen. "There," he stated, simply. He became aware of the others crowding behind him and turned with a gesture.

"There appears to be an abandoned, minuscule military settlement of some degree not seven megamiles to the southeast - or whatever equivalent this world has to it. Scans indicate that it contains a sizable bunker made to resist exactly these kinds of events. We will make camp there until the eruption ceases, and then we will come back and take the rear portions of this wreck of a spaceship as our own. Are there any questions?"

He glared as his gaze swept the combined forces of the battlegroup that had successfully taken the _Ark's _bridge and what seemed to be most of Soundwave's Cassetticons. Their creator was nowhere to be seen, but that was a problem for another time. His army - at least, the building blocks of what would come later. They would be more than enough for now.

"Something to say, Skywarp?" he barked, taking note of how the violet Seeker was avoiding his gaze and shifting in an uncomfortable fashion.

"No, sir!" Skywarp responded. "It's just that - well - What will happen to the Autobots? They're still in their stasis pods, after all. Vulnerable. Should we-"

"Leave them." the Decepticon leader finished. "We will deal with them later, if they will not already be roasted by magma and boiled in their nanobot baths. Now come - let us make our exit."

So they did, exiting carefully via a ledge of brimstone that Skywarp had previously scoped out. Those with aerial alt-forms, such as Laserbeak, the Seekers, or Spyglass, Photonicon Intelligence Specialist, took the more direct route, while Megatron and his higher-ranking officers made full use of their hovering abilities. With full knowledge of the fact that they couldn't have saved everyone anyways, and with full intention to return later, they left behind a number of dedicated Decepticon warriors, all those that weren't important enough to warrant an immediate reactivation.

Perhaps they'd regret that later. But, as of then, no one objected to the order of Kaon's legendary Great Slagmaker.

* * *

"SUITABLE ALTERNATE FORM LOCATED."

Optimus Prime's consciousness returned in a flash. He remembered everything: the duel on the Engine Deck, the ferocity of his Decepticon counterpart, the exquisite sensation of peeling away into space and time as the _Ark_ passed through the wormhole. His hands instinctively clasped over his midsection - nothing. His internals were good as new, and he was suspended in a fluid capsule. Above him, the glow of the stasis pod illuminated the corroded pipework of his ship's interior. Sparking bubbles of nitrogen flew past Optimus's head as microscopic nanobots burst from the strain of cooling their tiny forms.

"PROCEED WITH SUBJECT REFORMATION?" the computer inquired patiently. Optimus realized it had already asked once before while he was still coming to terms with himself and rebooted his vocal processors.

"Affirmative, computer. Initiate all preliminary scans in the meantime. I'd like to know everything you have about our new surroundings. We've been offline for far too long."

From the moment he stepped out of the stasis pod, Optimus knew that something was amiss. Whatever was left of the nanobot solution evaporated off of him in wisps of nearly-toxic steam, leaving a dry, salty crust on his polished and gleaming armor. The heat sucked the air from his airbags and replaced it with something that caused his diagnostic center to throw up a warning - something about a silicate desiccant playing havoc with his vents.

"Ash . . ." he coughed, making his way to the main Teletraan terminal. Surprisingly, it was still active despite the constant close climate. He couldn't imagine how long they'd been out, judging by the state of disrepair the bridge was in . . .

"Teletraan-One, activate the viewscreen shutters!" he commanded, laying a hand on the center console. "Get the cooling system back online!"

"ERROR," the supercomputer reported, causing Optimus's armor to flare in disappointment for the briefest of moments. "COOLING SYSTEM DAMAGED. WELCOME-COME, OPTIMUS P-P-PRIME. SOLAR HEAT SHIELDS LOWER-ER-ER-LOWERING."

A dreadful screeching noise filled the bridge as the _Ark's_ viewscreen was covered by a thick shutter of Cybertanium and heat-retardant foam. Instantly, Optimus felt better as the crimson glow of the volcano disappeared beneath the shields - it was still hot as an oven, yes, and his vents were still choked with ash and smoke, but at least some of the problem had been dealt with.

"VENTILATION S-SYSTEMS: 67% ONLINE. PLEASE ST-st-STAND BY . . ."

The inside of the bridge cleared up a little bit as the ship's running lights activated. When all was said and done, the contaminants were far from dispersed.

". . . but now, we can _get_ somewhere," Optimus pontificated to the corroded walls and smashed computer screens. "Teletraan, it's time to wake the others. Give me a readout of the occupied stasis pods in this room."

"AFFIRMATIVE," the computer responded, displaying a cross-section of the stasis pod system. To Optimus's surprise, most of them were still occupied - and not all of them were filled by Autobots.

"Interesting," he muttered. "Very interesting."

* * *

The fire crackled as Rumble drew closer to it. Not that it was cold - far from it - but he'd just wanted to watch something burn while the Decepticons waited out the volcanic activity. Sitting around in this cement bunker was _boring, _and there wasn't much else to do now that everything that Ravage had allowed him to destroy - mostly vehicles scaled for beings half his height - was in a pile of smashed metal and glass.

"Hey, Spectro," his proto-twin Frenzy said, "turn up th' heat, will ya?"

The hulking Photonicon said nothing, just grunted and let loose a torrent of fire from one of his many arm-mounted weapons. Flames roared higher into the air, and the bonfire finally stopped emitting that irritating, vaguely musical cacophony when a laptop computer, displaying some kind of organic feline creature chasing a low-intensity laser beam, melted into nothingness.

Rumble threw another electronic device, this one a slightly larger desktop terminal, into the fire. "I like it when the batteries explode."

_Sooner or later, you're going to have to quit that, _Buzzsaw remarked from his perch atop some type of flagpole hanging from the wall. It clearly wasn't meant for his weight and sagged almost double even as the spy shifted atop its finial ball. _You're filling the room with smoke. Bad for the air intakes. We've already escaped one chemical-filled gas chamber. I don't want to roost tonight in another one._

"Primus, you're a diva," Rumble groaned. "What's wrong with a little fire every now and then, anyways? Soundwave gives you all the best tasks. I'm a Demolitions mech! A little bit of chemical fire every now-an'-then's good for you! Like the ol' man says, it builds character. Look at me! I'm inhalin' that stuff twice, three times every decacycle, an' I'm doin' just fine!"

_Minus a few hundred brain cells, of course, _Laserbeak snarked.

Rumble surged to his feet. "All right, that's it! You wanna go, birdy? You can shape-shift inta anything you like, an' you'll STILL wind up lookin' like a burnt-out toastah when Frenzy an' I are through with ya!"

_Enough! _their oldest sibling, Ravage, snapped in their shared link. Before the _Nemesis's_ launch, he'd been on a long-term assignment for a few dozen years running pacification and espionage in his native Burthov, and his husky accent was slightly thicker than Rumble remembered it being. _Pathetic. Soundwave would not stand for this. Lord Megatron sits before you, and still, you all act like buffoons. Does it not occur to you that our father remains trapped somewhere in the enemy_ Ark? _Correct attitudes now, or _I_ will correct for you._

Laserbeak dipped her head, letting her ruby-red glare leave Rumble and Frenzy's. _Apologies. I do miss the boss. Guess I'm just pretty worried about him._

"_You think he's dead_?" Frenzy asked, switching to internal comms as he sat back down. His twin followed his motion, the fire taken out of him by Ravage's tirade. "_Nah . . . Soundwave always comes through. Right? Ravage, what's your take_?"

The black panther didn't respond immediately, resuming his silent pacing once he was sure his siblings had calmed down. _Not important what I think. Finding Father is our number one priority. _He paused, briefly, as if considering the words that he was about to speak. _Even if Lord Megatron does not agree with us._

_Well, I think it's worth a go! Er, finding Soundwave, I mean, not mutiny . . . well, yeah, mutiny, but only if we're hung out to dry again . . . but you know, if you think about it, Megatron would probably feel the same way we do . . ._

"_Glitch, NO_!" the Cassetticon Medic's siblings screamed in unison as they each received a crystal-clear forethought of what he was about to do next.

_Remember what he did last time you did something like this? He cut off your forelegs! _Laserbeak exclaimed.

_Soundwave is Megatron's oldest friend and number two guy! If anyone'll sanction a mission like this, it'd be him! Besides, I don't hold a grudge-_

_You are making mistake, soldier. Stand down. Please, _Ravage growled, but his youngest sibling wasn't listening this time.

_"Lord Megatron,"_ Glitch began on open comms. "_I, heh, was just wondering . . ."_

"'Just wondering' _what,_ Cassetticon?" the Decepticon leader intoned, looking up from his fusion cannon. His eyes met Glitch's, and the Medic shrank back a bit, even as his foreleg shielding involuntarily shifted towards the front of his prosthetic limbs.

_"Well, ah . . . it's just that . . . me and the other guys were thinking, eh, what's next? What's our plan of action, as it were?"_

Megatron seemed to ponder that for a while. He sat up straighter in his makeshift throne, made from an abandoned 4X4 military truck - a dead ringer for his alternate mode - and opened his mouth, presumably to begin a grand speech.

"I am so glad you asked, my Beastformer subject!" a new, _screechier _voice interrupted from no discernable source. The Decepticons went on guard, reaching for their weapons as one mech. Ravage snarled as the air first shimmered behind him, then solidified into a thin, greasy-looking Decepticon wearing a well-worn smirk and a pointed glare on his hawkish features.

"YOU!" Megatron roared.

"Yes, _me_," the newcomer confirmed. "Look at you Decepticons, squatting in a primate's cave while opportunity slips from between your very digits! Misled by a pretender to the throne, sitting around a dying fire as our sworn enemies awaken in their defenseless fortress! No more, my friends! This planet - insignificant as it may seem - is ours for the taking, a new start for our race, steeped in energy and begging to be turned into the new figurehead of Decepticon supremacy! The new age of Cybertronian Expansion has come - and I, **_Starscream_**, demand a seat at your vanguard!"

FIN

* * *

**Author's Note: **All right! I'm feeling good about this. This chapter took longer than I expected, but it'll do just fine, despite its shorter length.

Did you enjoy it? Well, you know the drill. Leave reviews - because I can't fix my work if YOU don't tell me what's wrong with it! Thank you for reading.

-The Doctor (Do)


	6. The Usurper's Tale

When Jazz returned to consciousness, he did it in much the same way as he always did - quickly, cleanly, and almost professionally. He didn't ask where he was, what had happened, or anything of the sort. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings with a critical eye and swung his legs over the side of the C/R capsule he didn't remember getting in.

_Memories. Huh. What_ did _happen last time we were up and running, anyhow? _he wondered idly, then reflexively clamped a hand to his chest as a ghost of searing pain ripped through his torso.

"It was a 'Con, of course. Hit you with a taste of your own medicine when your shields were depleted," a semi-grouchy voice said. "Scatter Blaster incendiary rounds - nasty stuff. I'm just glad the C/R tanks fixed all of you hotshots up; mainly so I don't have to spend all lunar cycle buffing your paint jobs and re-tuning your tactile sensors."

"Hey, nice ta see you too, Ratchet!" Jazz replied jovially, stretching. "How's life treatin' ya? Your flight was good as mine, I take it? An', uh, on th' subject, how long have we all been out?"

"Abominably, no, it was awful, and no one knows, in that order," another voice spoke up. However, going off of inflection and the edge of bitter, dry wit alone, one could say that the new voice actually spoke _down._ The Autobot First Lieutenant knew at once who it was without even needing to search for its owner. Gears, commander of the Autobot Transport Division, laid in a berth adjacent to Jazz's, staring blankly up at the ceiling and absentmindedly flexing some kind of medical tool in his left hand.

"Chronometers are all fragged six ways from Solus-cycle, chief," he continued. "We're stuck on an organic mudworld with no way off and no way of knowing whether or not anyone else in the fleet survived the crash. My pedes hurt and I want to go home. I hate all of this already."

"Put that down, Gears, before you break it! I need it to bring everyone else back online," Ratchet scolded, putting aside the datapad he'd been reading and snatching the tool from Gears's hand.

Jazz rose fluidly to his feet, indulging in a brief stretch before crossing the makeshift medbay as well. Time hadn't been kind to the _Ark,_ but that problem was to be considered and solved later. "And cancel that negativity too, yeah? Primus provides, my friend. Just look at us - we're still cooking an' ventin' air. Tha's gotta count for somethin', right?"

The CMO snorted. "You can thank Primus if you like. Me, I'm just worried about our immediate survival. We've got a lot of empty stasis pods, Jazz, and most of them are still carrying energy signatures - Decepticon signatures. There're still some of them locked in stasis; case in point, this fellow right here." He rapped a nearby stasis pod with a wrench. "Much as I hate agreeing with Gears, he does have a point. We have no clue where we are and no backup in case things go south. Oh, and the _Ark's_ crashed in an active volcano, nearly forgot that part. We've got quite a bit of work to do."

"Sounds like it," Jazz agreed.

"We're probably going to die," Gears noted.

"Hush, you. Jazz - I took the liberty of assigning you a new alternate mode. Preliminary scans indicate that there's at least semi-intelligent life on this planet, and we'll likely need to use the SWORD protocol before this is over. I went with the one your technobiometrics seemed to prefer over the other options, the one your pod came up with. Hope you like it."

"Where's this medbay at - midships?" Jazz replied, grinning. "I'll have to try out the new wheels on the way to th' bridge. Thanks, doc!"

"Very well, but do be careful, Jazz. There's substantial-"

Suddenly, the cover on one of the other pods flew open, causing dust to rain from the ruined ceiling. A bulky orange arm clamped down on the rim, denting it, followed by an enormous upper body still soaking wet with nanobot solution.

"THEY - LEFT - ME!" the Decepticon Ratchet had indicated earlier boomed with heavily-modulated fury. A spiked mace rose from the pod, dangling on a chain attached directly to the raider's wrist joint. "KILL THEM ALL - THEY'LL PAY FOR EVERYTHING THEY'VE DONE!"

* * *

Tensions rose in the room the moment that the former Decepticon Air Commander made his appearance. All eyes darted to Megatron at one point or another, save for one pair: Ravage, whose gaze never left Starscream's.

Starscream's trinemates, Thundercracker and Skywarp, watched in silence, though not even they were pleased at this turn of events. Skywarp fidgeted, keeping a guarded neutral expression even as the rest of his body language screamed _kill me, please._ Thundercracker, conversely, stood still as a statue, tendrils of electricity sporadically flickering around his clenched fists and snapping about his eyes.

Viewfinder, commander of the Photonicons, was also quiet, but it was extremely hard to not notice the fact that the lens-like aperture on his lower torso had spiraled open at some point in the last 30 seconds and that an indicator light on his forehead crest was glowing red. Nevertheless, Megatron didn't act as if he was being filmed. None of the Decepticons did, really, save for the web of short-distance comm signals that flitted back and forth over their heads - accusations of being a loyalist to the treacherous Seeker, expressions of shock, and speculations as to what would happen next. There were some bets being made, too.

Megatron rose from his makeshift throne with no great speed, casually, yet deliberately. Remarkably, he didn't instantly fly into a rage or vaporize the traitor with a cannon blast, or anything of the sort. In a strangely friendly tone, he engaged the Seeker:

"Starscream. It's been a while since our paths last met. Still roving for a new chassis, I see? Now, is this particular new look to satisfy your indomitable vanity or to forget about the hole I shot in your chest after you nearly drove my dominion into the ground?"

"Yeah, I like the new 'tats, Screamer! Really bring out the friggin' delusional petty criminal in your optics!" Spectro yelled from the back of the room, causing Starscream to scowl and self-consciously look down at his body, which was indeed covered with intricate black designs and Old Cybertronic glyphs.

"Feh! I'll have you know, you uneducated bore, that my new chassis is meant as a homage to the Cybertronian Knights of old! These 'tattoos,' as you so eloquently put them, represent strength, they represent honor, and most importantly, they represent _truth_ \- things the average brainwashed fool wouldn't understand! Hear _that,_ Megatron? How much do these idiots know about your grand plans?!"

"_Silence!"_ Megatron roared, shutting his former subordinate up instantly. "I was of the impression that it couldn't be clearer how much you are _not __**wanted**_ here."

"_Lord Megatron,_" Ravage said through open comms, "_Starscream is not-"_

"I know, Ravage," the Decepticon leader interjected in a level tone. "I mean to say that this rust-riddled slime has no place in my army, no place in the Empire. He still wears the colors on his shoulder coupling with no appreciation as to what they stand for. He doesn't deserve to keep up this mockery of decorum. Starscream, let me tell you something - the lowest, most pathetic, most incompetent private in the whole of Decepticon territory officially outranks you - and if you were **here** _in person_ right now, I'd _personally_ strip you of rank, voice, and limb - in that order - and give you to the Skywing twins, alive, to do with as they please. Understand?"

Buzzsaw and Laserbeak, obligingly, squawked and screeched from their perches, but Starscream didn't move. His head was hanging low, one arm hovering near his face as if to stifle a sob - or, perhaps, to guard one's expression. His form suddenly flickered, growing fainter by the moment - a very-long-distance hologram.

Megatron stepped closer, looming over Starscream's form. "Answer me! Why do you continue to blight us with your presence?"

Then, the Seeker finally raised his head, letting his arm drop to the side. He was grinning triumphantly, eyes glinting with renewed vigor. "My, my, you really have been asleep for a long time, _mighty _Megatron."

The other two Seekers' eyes bugged out as they received some kind of data burst from a distant source. Thundercracker let in a long, slow stream of air as he reviewed the information.

"Ho . . . ly . . . slag . . ." Skywarp murmured in astonishment.

"We won, Decepticons!" Starscream crowed. "Marching into Iacon, the Autobots were powerless to stop us from taking the Old City! Ultra Magnus - _Duly Appointed Officer of the Tyrest Accord - _was unable to mount any sort of last, desperate defense, and, after merely 16 vorns of further combat, we captured him in Decimus College - with all of his weak lieutenants as well! For the past seven . . . HUNDRED . . . orbital cycles, Decepticon rule has been law across all of Cybertron!"

Megatron staggered backwards. "My . . . my Decepticons . . . have won? After so long-"

"No, Megatron. The _individuals_ you instilled with idealism, propaganda, and nationalistic pride have won the war you _insisted_ on propagating. _Without_ your thirst for oil and _without_ the ceaseless atrocities committed in your name, we've finally won the peace that we _**all**_ _deserve_. And that is the greatest blessing our kind has ever known."

"Wait," Thundercracker said. "There's something here about the Great Polar Split - what's that?"

"Peace talks," Starscream spat, waving his hand dismissively. "Sadly, not all Northerners were as welcoming of our role as the majority was. There were fringe riots, attacks on military outposts. Terrorist attacks, suicide bombings. Reconstruction difficulties. After much deliberation, it was decided to pull out of all territories above the latitude of 23º North."

"You WHAT?" Megatron shouted furiously. "How DARE you give the Autobots one iota of room to strike back against us?!"

"Because that's not how it works anymore, foolish warmonger!" the hologram snapped. "This is peace! This is how it SHOULD be! Compromises MUST be made at times! We just got our lives back, escaped from the endless cycle of death and destruction that's all some people have known - the cycle we've endured for MILLIONS of millennia! Skywarp, Thundercracker - you should see the space program! Cybertronians are free to ply the cosmos once more! Cassetticons, you beasts in particular, the discrimination you've suffered under the Primal Lineage is no more! Your very own sibling, Ratbat, is in charge of our Empire, and he's introduced the first _real_ equality ever seen on Cybertron! Together, and with one Decepticon voice, **all **have finally become **one."**

There was a certain air of world-shattering revelation in the bunker, broken only by an electronic device exploding in Rumble's fire. The Decepticon leader turned away from the gathering, armor undulating only slightly faster than usual.

"Space program sounds pretty nice," Skywarp said, tentatively trying to break the silence. His trinemate slapped him upside the head with a whispered "shut it."

"He's not wrong, though," one of the Photonicons remarked. "We were one of the strongest space-faring races in the Local Sector before the Solstar Order restricted us to the Hadean System. And peace - that's a word I haven't heard in some time."

_I do not look forward to a Cybertron under thrall of my brother, _Ravage snarled. _I would rather suffer in squalor than spend rest of my life as even Ratbat's number-one czar._

"Seriously, though," Frenzy blurted, "all of these fantastic things goin' on, and the person you goons put in power's slaggin' Ratbat? One'a the idiots who thought makin' Functionism an integral part of the government was a neat idea?"

"Well, in truth, that's the reason I've decided to contact you all. Ratbat's a truly abysmal leader. He seems to want to give far more than we can take, unwilling to stand his ground against this new Autobot extremist movement." Starscream smirked. "There's even been talk of renaming the Decepticons - apparently, we are no longer the 'deceptive' warriors our forebears were."

The Air Commander was interrupted by Megatron, who let loose a deep-throated shout of anger and brought his fists crashing against the nearest flat surface, which happened to be the wreck of a military vehicle. He took a moment to compose himself and continued in a calmer tone. ". . . what has become . . . of my Empire? Treason . . . betrayal . . . a generation of weak-willed simpletons unwilling to _take_ what is rightfully theirs . . . gestures of APOLOGY to the ones who kept us under their heels for eons? It is an AFFRONT to our Decepticon heritage!"

"I couldn't agree more, Megatron," Starscream simpered comfortingly, easing a few steps closer to the warlord. "Cybertron is in desperate need of a new, more capable leader. That is why I ask for assistance - just a few of your elite troops gathered here before me to realize _our_ shared goal. I am Air Commander of Cybertron's new Ultracon Federation, and can engineer a minor coup as soon as my forces are reinforced and coordinated. Nothing major - just enough of a shake-up to get a true Decepticon in office. Then, I've other plans-"

"And who would be the new ruler, Starscream - you?" the Decepticon leader interjected. When he whirled around to face his former lieutenant, his eyes had gone pure black - the darkest shade of Stygian midnight anyone had ever seen. It was so black that it seemed to distort reality whenever Megatron's head moved, leaving a trail of disrupted space behind him as he stomped toward Starscream's holomatter projection. "As I recall it, you're an even worse commander than you are a Cybertronian! Last time you were in charge, last time you had unfettered power, the Autobots nearly turned the tide of the war in their favor! You undid hundreds of thousands of orbits' worth of progress and victory - and you did it in **JUST**! **THREE**! **CYCLES**!"

"Perhaps - but Megatron! I was merely stating that-"

"This conversation is **OVER** \- **FINISHED**!" Megatron cried as the antimatter enveloped his hands with arcane energy. "Good-bye, Starscream. I am coming to retake Kolkular's throne for myself - and I will not be gentle when I arrive."

He swept his fists through Starscream's image, and the hologram tore apart at the seams.

* * *

Trillions and trillions of miles away, in a high-tech holodeck lab, a Seeker stumbled out of the projection booth as tendrils of antimatter consumed the device's extremities. There were sparks. Debris rained down from above, punching holes and leaving long, bold scratches in the duraglass platform. It almost seemed as if the machine was eating itself alive.

"ERROR. ERROR," the diagnostic computer reported. "CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. CLEAR HOLODECK IMMEDIATELY."

"NOT! HELPFUL!" Starscream screeched.

"ANTIMATTER OVERLOAD. INITIATING EMERGENCY NEUTRALIZATION PROCEDURES."

Starscream, with no negligible amount of effort, shut the containment bulkhead against the chaos and put his back up to it, venting heavily.

"Curse that foolish Megatron and the improbable stubbornness with which he blunders through life! Fine! I'll just do it myself! OIL PAN!"

"Yessir, my lord and master?" the thin carformer manning the holodeck control unit prompted.

"We're defaulting to Plan B!"

"Ah, B for 'Barricade,' sir? Very clever of you!"

Starscream glanced up incredulously from his wrist computer, where he was reviewing both his personal data and the recent comms he'd received while in the holomatter fabricator. "No, you dolt! 'B' as in 'the letter after A', which in this scenario means, 'the plan we default to after the old bolt-bat warhound decides to shake up the social order and plunge Cybertron right back into war . . . AGAIN!"

The carformer - Starscream's personal assistant - frowned. "Bit harder to remember, but very well. You want me to get a hold of Captain Shatter at the Corps, then?"

"Just like we practiced. Send Shatter and Dropkick to the Target World. Have them find Barricade or, if he's incapacitated . . . slaggit, Thunderblast or even Astrotrain, for all I care. Just make sure they get in contact with someone who can manage to dig up a lead on the Objective. I'll need to reach Blackout, see if I can convince him to join our merry little crusade. He may prove susceptible to . . . encouragement, if he believes it's being done for Megatron's cause. I've a few other ideas too, but they must steep for a little while longer yet."

"At least, sir, you now have a location of the Target World. Nothing's stronger than a Seeker's tri-spark-bond to bridge distances our tech can't quite cover."

Starscream crossed over to another terminal. "Ah, yes. That reminds me." He tore off a long strip of thin film engraved with spatial coordinates on both sides. "Here you are. Congratulations! You, Oil Pan of Velocitron, have discovered the location of the long-lost _Nemesis. _Be proud of yourself! Oh, and when you're done calling our allies, I have a nice, lengthy assignment for you."

"Which is, sir?" Oil Pan asked excitedly, reaching for the film with hands dripping with filthy oil.

"Ah, ah. Wipe your hands like we talked about. There's a good chap. I need you to infiltrate Shockwave's new Tower in the North Pole. Input these coordinates into his main computer and let me know when you've finished. It's time to bring our mechs home."

The messenger's face fell. "But sir . . . Shockwave's Tower . . . that's suicide. I mean, I'll do it - I owe far too much to you to not - but Shockwave's just so . . . horrible. That terrifying single optic, his voice, his sick experiments - I mean, he's already got his hands full with those Dinobot creatures. He won't be happy to see a Loyalist just - just MARCHING into his new Tower and using his Bridge without authorization. I mean-"

"Shockwave will not be a problem, my greasy friend," Starscream declared, inspecting the grime-covered lab controls with revulsion on his face. "I will see to it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some evidence to destroy."

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir. I'll get right on all of those things." The Velocitronian bowed, scraped, and left humbly.

Starscream lifted a hand to his audio receptor and patched an individual through. "Hello? Yes, this is he. We're done here. By all means, feel free to send your best mechs. Wipe this disgusting Autobot facility off the map . . . Motormaster."

* * *

Once more, the military bunker buzzed with a shocked silence. No one was overly willing to reopen conversation - an angry warlord prone to breaking the laws of reality could really kill an atmosphere - and besides, most of the individuals involved were too busy digesting the information they'd just been given. The Seekers, in particular, were still skimming through the documents beamed to them by their trinemate.

Megatron inclined his head to the ceiling even as it rained pebbles of concrete and dropped plumes of dust. His optics were shuttered, and he was breathing heavily. It was quiet enough to hear the faraway eruption of the volcano they'd awakened in not even five hours before - a low rumble that was felt rather than heard.

Finally, the Decepticon leader spoke. "Skywarp. I know it was you who opened the proverbial door to Starscream. I know you gave him the coordinates of our bunker. Such a crime - especially after what we've just learned - would be considered by a lesser mech to be equitable with treason."

Skywarp blanched. "Primus. Lord Megatron, I can make it up to you. Just tell me to do anything - literally anything - and I'll do it. Give me another chance, please!"

"You are not to communicate with Starscream anymore. Doing so will be met with severe consequences. Thundercracker, this goes for you too."

The blue-and-silver Seeker bowed his head. "Yes, Megatron."

"_Ravage," _Megatron beamed to the eldest Cassetticon, "_your opinion is heard. No one else will know of it. Once I find your commander, I will work with both of you to establish a solution. I know better than many the vagaries of the Senate - especially those of Senator Ratbat."_

The panther responded on the private comm channel he'd opened with Megatron as soon as the Air Commander had sent the holomessenger. _My thanks._

Without acknowledging the fact that he'd been communicating with anyone, the Decepticon Leader strode over to the nearest wall, which had once been the focal point of a well-equipped nerve center - before Rumble had had his way with the electronics there, by any rate. He arched his back as he engaged another dark - some would say eldritch - power. Spiked vials of purple gel on his back drained themselves. Megatron placed his hands on the wall, and channeled the power of Dark Energon.

Almost instantaneously, any remaining computers on the wall fizzled and blinked out one by one. A Robertson projection of the planet's surface, highlighted in a soothing blue, was the last to disappear, but when it did, its deactivation was noticeably more violent than the others had been. Whole continents dropped off of the display, one by one, before the map was consumed by bolts of dying electricity. Dark violet-and-black veins of corruption pulsed through the concrete, occasionally discharging sparks of energy as it tunneled through the earthen material that made up the base; which destabilized further as Megatron continued his assault.

Finally, the wall crumbled into boulders of rebar and gray stone with an ear-splitting shriek. The oppressive, borderline toxic atmosphere of the bunker was sucked outside and a blast of warm, fresh air entered the room. Golden sunlight came through the hole, causing several Decepticons to shield their eyes from the glare.

"Beg pardon, sire - what are we doing now?" Spyglass shouted over the din of destruction.

"What do you think, Photonicon? We're retaking the Decepticon name. Come! Let us find Soundwave - and lay waste to the remains of the Autobots as they lay helpless in their own recharge slabs."

* * *

The morningstar came crashing into the medical berth to Jazz's direct right, causing him to dodge accordingly. He thrust out his hand and was pleased to find that his subspace was still operational. His Crescent Blaster, with its wide Durasteel flak shield, slid neatly into his grip.

"Ratchet! Take Gears an' get outta Dodge!" he cried. "This 'Con's outnumbered an' he knows it - imma see if I can't talk 'im off the deep end!"

"Are you mad? What about the medbay?" Ratched responded. "There're still stasis-locked soldiers here! Damage their pods enough, and we'll have slaughter on our servos!"

"Guess I'll have ta talk 'im down quickly, then," Jazz muttered, deflecting another strike. His opponent was breathing heavily - _probably that heavy-as-Pit armor,_ he thought.

The Decepticon lunged out with a surprisingly quick, non-telegraphed punch with his shielded off-arm that almost caught Jazz across the faceplate, then fired a rocket cluster point-blank into the spot where Jazz had been standing only a moment before. "Kill you! Gotta - gotta find the others . . ."

With a light _thump,_ Jazz hit the ground behind his adversary, having evaded over their head. "The 'others?' You talkin' about Megatron? The same dude who you were screamin' about ripping apart a click ago?"

SWISH! The Decepticon's mace swung over Jazz's head, a clumsy and relatively slow attack. It was nearly over. "They're the only ones . . . who gave me a CHANCE!"

One last stroke of the deadly weapon ended up lodged deep in the damaged deck. Immediately, Jazz kicked down, a flawless snap to the head that stunned his foe. Zipping up with a knee to the faceplate, he flipped over the Decepticon raider again, shot an Energon grappling hook around a bar on the Decepticon's shoulder armor, jerked back their torso just enough to follow through and splay them on the ground, and finally planted a firm foot on the raider's weapon arm. He finished all of this off by summoning his thin, flexible, and very sharp Crescent Blade from subspace, and leveled it at the Decepticon's neck.

"I don't want to hurt you. Let's just make that clear, ok?" Jazz supplicated. "If any of us Autobots wanted to do that, you wouldn't have been revived. Believe me, Ratchet's one tough son-of-a-glitch, but he wouldn't've jus' left ya ta die."

The raider grunted, voice modulator filtering out any data other than the fact that something had been said.

"I believe we've gotten off on th' wrong pede," he continued. "Name's Jazz of Staxis. I wanna hear your side of the story. Mind turnin' that mod off so we can get ta know each otha better?"

"Negative," the other mech growled, still heavily modulated.

Jazz blew out a sharp exhale. "A'ight. Here, let me help ya up. We'll talk. Nothing more, I promise. Oh, an' you can put that big honkin' mace away. Ya don't need it."

"I can't," the Decepticon said, very deliberately. "It's grafted to my wrist joint." As he said this, the chain nevertheless slowly retracted, leaving its owner with nothing more than an extremely basic, clumsy-looking manipulator claw. He then began to get up without accepting any kind of assistance from Jazz.

_This is gonna be an interesting day, _Jazz though, clamping his Crescent Blaster to his back. Though he held it much more loosely, the sword stayed in his hand; just to be sure.

FIN


	7. Common Ground

History did seem to repeat itself. Maybe it didn't follow the exact timeline of events, maybe the repetition involved different characters, maybe it repeated itself in a way that spanned years rather than minutes. This was not one of these times, and the bulky figure standing in Ratchet's makeshift medbay only served to remind Jazz of that.

"OK, OK," he said, exuding an air of complete calm even as the Decepticon in front of him clenched the brutish claw that became their morningstar, "you're in good servos now. It was just a misunderstandin' tha' 'Streaker, Cliff, an' Camshaft showed up. A-an overreaction. Ignore them."

"I'll fight them if they come near - I swear to Primus Below!" the raider warned.

"Try it, motherboard-fragger! I've got a few blades here with your name on them - literally!" a voice called from the hallway. Camshaft, of course - the other two were unlikely to attack, although anyone could see that Cliffjumper was all but shaking with the effort of holding himself back. Sunstreaker's expression was, of course, unreadable behind his controlled posture and the facemask that obscured his flawless features. Camshaft - a smaller, angrier reconnaissance operative - on the other hand, was being held back; the only thing keeping him from charging into the clinic and driving his katars through the Decepticon's throat being Windcharger, a young Outlier warrior from the last days of the Senate.

"No one's fighting anyone," the mech in the doorway stated. "Windcharger, take these gentlemechs on a walk. Perhaps that will help them cool their afterburners a bit."

Camshaft stopped struggling, single eye burning a hole in the back of the Praxian's helm. "I'm not going ANYWHERE. I'll wait for this piece of garbage _here._ Thanks."

"Camshaft, go with Windcharger and the others. That is a direct order. Once we're done here, you're going to be the recipient of a _very _severe review, which I will personally oversee. You're relieved of duty for the solar cycle to take some time to ease your mind in whatever barracks we can dig out in short order. I'll send someone by shortly to lock your subspace compartment until the review's over. Do I make myself clear?"

The recon agent's fingers twitched. "Very."

Waving his hand, the other mech spoke. "Then go. I'll notify your commanding officer."

"Who is that?" the Decepticon whispered to Jazz. It was almost a comical sight: the hulking raider with a mace for a hand leaning in so close to the smaller, more fragile-looking Autobot with overtones of a shaky kind of respect.

Jazz smiled. "Tha's Prowl, our TIC. Thought it might be a good idea to get him down here. He used ta be a Decepticon, too. Watch yo'self, though - he can be kinda a sticky piston."

Prowl, for his part, didn't seem interested in demonstrating his infamous acerbity. He approached the Decepticon crisply, yet gracefully, and offered a formal nod.

"Bah weep gragnah weep ninny bong, my friend. Prowl - just Prowl, if you please - at your service."

"Private Lift-Ticket of the Old North Crusade, at yours," the raider replied.

Prowl opened his mouth to respond, but was beaten to the punch by his superior officer, who whistled. "Old North Crusade, huh? That's pretty recent. What was it, two lunar cycles ago? Ya didn't tell me that."

"Two and two fifths of a lunar before we launched the _Ark,_ yes," Prowl confirmed. "You're a New-built, then? Former C.O. Shellshock? That must have been hard for you."

"I'm not three lunars old. I bounced around the Equatorial States - or, should I say, the _ruins_ of the Equatorial States - for a while before they found me.

Lift-Ticket was silent for a moment, then continued. "You Autobots have been fed a Charger-scrap story about Shellshock. He and his team are . . . _mostly . . . _good people. It's the same old Functionist drabble against Outliers and military builds that's misleading you. They had no obligation to take me in, a vagrant youngling from Gangland, but they did. Shellshock fixed me up. He gave me this upgrade. He trained me, fed me, and prepared me for combat for about a sol-cycle before recommending me to the Slagmaker himself. He _made_ me a Crusader."

_And then sold you off to be a foot soldier in Megatron's death-or-glory mission. After sending you through the Tri-Torus warzones with very little backup, _Jazz thought to himself. Prowl, too, was fighting back a salty comment aimed at Shellshock and probably a good many old-time Senators too. His doorwings flicked agitatedly and his teeth were grit as they did when the Praxian's logic center hit an emotion-laden problem it couldn't solve impartially. Jazz wondered what his friend could feel with all that extra doorwing action and set his own to work.

Determined to not let the silence become too awkward, he tried for a winning smile. "Hey, look. I enjoyed the old Crusader comics as much as anyone back in the day. Still got a collection in a secure location back home, if I'm not mistaken. I respect your . . . er, stepdaddy . . . for his ideals an' his courage ta say what needed sayin', even if I'm not on board with his means, 'kay? Oh, by th' way - is Deadheat _really _from Velocitron, or is that just a selling point o' th' stories? Sure as sin, no one can live there, right? S'too extreme."

Lift-Ticket said something in response, but Jazz was only half listening as he sent Prowl a private comms-message.

_Take it, man. Now's our chance._

"-but he'd rather not tell anyone," the raider finished. "Now, him and Firebreaker on the other hand? That's a steaming can of-"

"We'd . . . like to get down to business, if you're ready," Prowl interrupted, ending the conversation. "You mentioned to my associate that you'd like to defect from the Decepticons?"

Lift-Ticket's visor darkened. "I . . . yes. I was one of the lucky ones. You don't even know what those . . . er, the _darker_ side of the Empire does to kids like me."

"Pretty sure I do," Jazz muttered to himself.

"Even when you're a certified Raider under direct command of General Brawl and endorsed by a Warlord - Shellshock himself, of all people! - I don't know how most lower-rank mechs can stand it, let alone those femmes like Astraea or Thunderblast. The abuse I've suffered - I'd taken to wearing this armor cycle after cycle; just so the weaker ones would think twice before messing with me."

Prowl's face remained impassive, but his eyes were filled with the kind of weariness only seen when a battle-hardened soldier sees themselves reflected in the soul of another being. Jazz couldn't help but realize that their Decepticon guest began rubbing his right wrist, where the morningstar became his hand. Something tickled the edge of Jazz's awareness - a tingle so faint that a non-Praxian wouldn't have even registered it. Well, half-Praxian, at least. Half-Praxian with an enhanced sensory suite graded for Special Ops use.

"Primus below and his Firstborn's Sword. That's rough, friend. I wish I could tell you that I know how it feels. I can't, but hey - chin up. Prowl's been inside for centuries - he probably can relate. For a while, he even reported directly to Megatron."

Lift-Ticket shuddered - barely, but Jazz's newly-hyper-alert doorwings read the movement inside the heavy armor. "Before I joined the Imperial Raiders, I thought the stories of how Megatron treated his officers were myths."

Prowl crossed his arms. "They're not. You should have been around when Starscream was still in his 'good' graces."

"He's mellowed out since then, I've heard. He's hardly even shot anyone since I got into the Raiders. But when someone _does_ cross him, well . . . it's not gentle. At all."

Sliding to his feet, Jazz discreetly ensured his sword was ready for deployment. It was. "I'll leave you two to it. You've found common ground - see if ya can't talk conditions while I'm gone. 'Imma go get us all some Energon - tha' is, if the excavation teams have found any tha's still charged."

He left quickly and quietly, taking care to shut and lock the door behind him. The hallway was dark and warm, the way a volcanic cave made of insulated alien metal should be. The lights on the wall sconces were running at 8% power to save energy until a stable power source was established. Distant voices drifted down the hall from the general direction of the bridge.

_Whirr . . . _ his doorwings adjusted as he made a big show of stretching. His HUD returned the very information he'd been dreading. He wasn't alone.

"Ravage. Decepticon spymaster. I see you've brought your brothers along with you, huh? Little bit of family bonding time? Honestly, I thought you were Cliff at first. Wouldn't be the first time he pulled somethin' like this."

There was no response for nearly enough time that Jazz seriously considered getting his doorwings recalibrated. Then, a patch of shadow in front of him shimmered and solidified into the shape of a big cat.

"_Well done, Autobot," _Ravage's gravelly voice growled from Jazz's comm unit. "_I see there is no sneaking up on you."_

Jazz's sword telescoped out to its full length, aiming a needle-sharp point at a light on the wall, which clicked in surprise and turned into Laserbeak.

"Can't Shift on me neither, bird girl," the Autobot continued. "An' Frenzy's crawlin' across the rafters, ready to hit me up with a couple dozen razor discs?"

He switched on a spotlight - a holdover from his new vehicle mode - and pointed it at the ceiling, where the blue-steel minibot was indeed holding position between two support arches.

"It was gonna be an electro-dart, but fine," Frenzy grumbled.

"Y'all need ta work on your infiltration skills," the Autobot crowed. "Guess it's the Spec-Ops trainin', but I'm jus' a smidge outta your weight class! Ah . . . I gotta say though, I'm feelin' a little outnumbered here! You're all, what, one one-half o' a mech put together? I mean, I've faced worse odds befo', but seriously? Unfair."

"Yes, yes, the '_Oooh, Cassetticons are small!' _joke we've all heard a billion times before!"

"Very _original, darling."_

"_It does not matter," _Ravage said shortly. "_You are exception, Staxisian. Many cycles of training make one wise in ways of stealth. Your friends - will not _all _be so lucky."_

Laserbeak squawked. "_Besides, going by your math, this will be a 2v1 fight anyway."_

"Yeah, what she said. Our favor, thick. You forgot a Cassetticon."

Jazz's eyes widened under his visor as a proximity alarm went off in his head. He whirled around, but too late - an explosion of metal feathers and the whine of turbines filled the air in front of Jazz's face. A thick tail wrapped around his neck, lifting him into the air.

"_Keep your filthy swordpoint off of my sister, groundpounder," _an erudite voice sneered. Jazz knew exactly who it was - Buzzsaw, Soundwave's Sculptor, one of the most elite spies in a unit of elite spies. He was trouble, even for an experienced mech like Jazz.

"_They say that in jazz, you just . . . make things up as you go along," _Buzzsaw said conversationally, but with an edge of cold malice to his digital voice. "_That's just perfect. You know, Jazz, sculpture is much the same as music in many ways. You take some raw materials, and whittle them away under your tools. You listen to the block of whatever-it-is you're playing with. Through trial and error, you discover exactly what it _WANTS _to be, buried underneath that boring grayish silver slab."_

The condor-like Cassetticon ran a thin feather over Jazz's faceplate, then licked the traces of weeping oil off of it.

"I_ think you'll like this. It's just like you. I have a feeling that you're gonna make a be-a-UTIFUL statue!"_

* * *

Wheeljack stumbled into the room accompanied by a blast of heat, which was stifled almost immediately by the rebooted temperature control of the _Ark's_ server room. He was steaming, coils of vapor curling off of his shoulders and the edges of his newly-fabricated, slightly toasted lab coat. Scrap. The coat, he thought, made a bold fashion statement. He'd look into repairing it later, but he had to cool off first.

The mechs that awaited him were slumped across the chairs and tables of the server room, lurking in the shadows to keep cool even as they helped themselves to the meager rations of Energon and oil the excavation teams had rounded up. Optimus Prime, on the other hand, was standing to allow his men the few flat, accommodating spaces that hadn't already been taken.

Grabbing a half-depleted cube from a tiny stack by the door, Wheeljack hung up his trusty wrench on a convenient hook and threw himself into a wall in a leaning position. "Ach . . . thanks for the help, guys. It was hot, heavy, an' dangerous, but th' Geothermal Mill's ready fer action. It should be mitigatin' the worst o' the eruption as we speak."

"Would've been easier if Gears hadn't lazed around in the medbay and actually helped out," Huffer, commander of the Constructibot Brigade, griped.

Trailbreaker threw back his third serving of Energon - regrettable, but the Defense strategist needed every drop to keep his fuel-inefficient form running - and waved his empty cube dismissively. "Now, now, friend, we've been over this. I'm sure Gears was only joking when he said that. Besides, he _did _pull the Mill out from the hold, so it's not really like he sat by while we did all the work."

"Knowin' Gears, he's prolly helpin' Ratchet out as we speak - an' complainin' about it th' whole time, too," Ironhide continued.

"Yes, General Shakar is undoubtedly doing his part," Optimus Prime said, surreptitiously placing his own half-full cube in the table next to Trailbreaker. "As a matter of fact, I'd be surprised if there was a single conscious spark on this ship who wasn't. Who wouldn't be giving these . . . _events_ their all? Do not forget, Autobots - the sooner we get the _Ark_ to speed, the better. Megatron's undoubtedly hiding somewhere nearby, waiting for the eruption to settle, so he can strike when we least expect it."

Ironhide grunted. "He knows where we are. We don't."

"Hold on, WE don't know where WE are? Or is it we don't know where THEY are? I'm getting confused messages here," the Constructobot Commander asked.

"In short, both," Optimus answered. "This Mill has kept us busy. The eruption is making things rather difficult. I haven't had a chance to step outside yet, but Teletraan tells me it's quite an interesting world out there. The land, in particular, is utterly breathtaking."

"'Cept for the scrapped-off volcano, of course," Wheeljack and Huffer said simultaneously, then shared expressions of mild disgust.

Optimus's optics glinted. "Quite. We should send out a pair of reconnaissance operatives immediately. Speaking of which, where _are_ those two? I must have commed them breems ago . . ."

"Trailbreaker, whatcha got there? Did Prime's message not go through?"

The enormous defense specialist finished off his last cube and stood at attention. "That's a negative, Wheeljack sir. The message reached Hound and Camshaft, no problem. Thing is, they've been delayed. Knowing Camshaft-"

"What do you mean, 'knowing Camshaft?'" a red-and-black truckformer asked - Overdrive, the recon officer's direct superior.

". . . knowing Camshaft, he's probably screaming obscenities at the Decepticon Jazz's negotiating with in the medbay."

Overdrive considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Not too smart," Ironhide snorted. "He shouldn't be taunting a 'Con who wants to parley. Common sense."

"I'll talk to Camshaft later today. Clearly, he's forgotten his training. I intend to change that."

Just then, a door on the opposite side of the server room spiraled open, admitting Hound and Cliffjumper. Both mechs saluted respectfully.

"At ease, brothers," Optimus said after returning the gesture. "Time is short and we cannot afford to beat around the bush - metaphorically speaking, of course. _Literally_ speaking, however, that is exactly what we intend to do. As you know, Megatron and most of the battlegroup that assaulted the bridge during the raid have revived and left the immediate area sometime in the last two vorns."

"They can't've gotten far," Hound noted. "From what I've heard, only half of them can even fly in secondary config, and they _must_ be discombobulated from the stasis. Megatron's a grounder himself, and he probably wouldn't let the majority of his troops get too far away from him on a strange planet, right?"

"Exactly. You'll have to move quickly and quietly until reinforcements can be found. Cliffjumper, that means track-and-report mission only, do you understand?"

"I understand you sir," Cliffjumper agreed. _And I choose to ignore you_ went unsaid.

"Our sole lead is this location. Wheeljack, if you would?"

The Chief Engineer peeled himself off the wall, produced a spherical device resembling a Sky Spy from one of the pockets on his coat and whacked it with a wrench a couple of times. A holographic scene sputtered to life above it, displaying a concrete bunker set into the side of a hill.

"Sky Spy received this image before it returned to the _Ark_ for a recharge," Wheeljack explained. "We believe it to be some kinda military installment for a branch of the planet's armed forces. It was the first thing in Teletraan's database when Optimus woke up." Several of the vehicles that were scanned for disguises were parked outside. It's possible - an' probable - that the 'Cons are hunkered up there, waitin' out the eruption."

"Plus, it just kinda looks like the sort of place Megatron would want to hang out at," Huffer, who had been studying the hologram, remarked. "Check it out, but keep your optics clear and your mind sharp."

Hound eyed the display with a seasoned optic for about three seconds, then nodded. "We'll need to get going. No telling what they're planning."

"You should be able to exit the _Ark _from the hangar on Deck Nine," Optimus called after him. "Try to avoid using the lifts - we've no idea if they're still operational."

"Copy that, sir. Come on, Cliff! Daylight's wasting!"

"Cliffjumper, wait." the Prime commanded. The Autobot in question hesitated for a moment, turning to Optimus.

"Sir?"

"I'm told that you were one of the mechs who showed up to neutralize our Decepticon guest. I trust that Lift-Ticket's presence among us won't cause you to make any . . . _rash_ decisions in the field?"

Cliffjumper, for his part, flashed a rakish grin. "Don't worry, Prime. I do get a bit heated sometimes, but I won't let _anything _put me off a mission. Trust me."

"Very well. You're dismissed," Optimus conceded after a piercing stare.

The silence in the server room continued for a moment or two, broken only by the whirr of machinery and cooling fans. "Ironhide, prepare a strike team as you see fit and prepare for battle to the best of your ability. I will join you and your chosen troops when Hound and Cliffjumper report back."

"You don't think Cliff can crack it, do you?" Overdrive asked cautiously, as if testing the thickness of ice with a tentative foot.

"I have faith that those two will find our enemies. I have . . . admittedly less faith that our resident archaeologist will keep his emotions in check once they do. Regardless, we must be ready. If we play our cards right, we may be able to stamp out the new ruling caste before they can return to Cybertron to expand and reinforce their empire, bolstered by the new knowledge of this planet."

Huffer threw a tiny ball-peen hammer at the table he was sitting at. It stuck, just barely, in the nylon-covered tabletop. "Scrap. Cards. I always sucked at Triad."

Just then, Gears burst into the room, panting heavily. This was the second time someone had entered in this fashion today, the first being Ratchet, reporting about the situation in the medbay.

"Gears! You lazy son-of-a-sprocket, what are you doin' here! The Mill's already installed!" Huffer exclaimed.

Wheeljack and Optimus stepped forward, being two of the three highest-ranking individuals in the server room. "What's wrong?" the latter mech asked worriedly. A horrible thought occurred to him, like the bottom being dropped out of his fuel tank, though he revealed nothing outwardly. Optimus Prime swallowed back the taste of bile in his mouth. "Have the negotiations gone south? Is Jazz . . ." he couldn't finish the sentence.

"Worse," Gears gasped, "The 'Con's friends have come back ta break 'im out."

* * *

The scene that met the impromptu battlegroup as they entered the medbay corridor wasn't pretty, but Jazz's pained grunts offered some reassurance - he wasn't dead, at the very least. Ratchet was leaning over the sterling Autobot, working tirelessly to stabilize Jazz's condition.

Optimus rushed to his SIC's side. He clenched his eyes shut once, visions of a bleeding Aerialbot of the same silver color as Jazz filling his mind, but he forced them back to a dark, cold corner of his mind. He couldn't afford to worry more on the subject at the moment. Like a good leader, he transformed his conscience into a businesslike mentality.

"Jazz - are you going to pull through?" His tone was even and calm, yet had a certain air of urgency.

The Autobot SIC coughed, pink Energon flecking his lips. "Swear ta Primus, don't anybody 'round here even know me? 'Course I'll make it! Took me by surprise, is all. There's only so much a mech can do when he's gettin' ganked by four whole sneaky li'l Mini-droids, ain't there?"

"Which way did they go?" Ironhide inquired with steely conviction. His twin cannons spun menacingly.

"They're down th' hall, ducked inta th' maintenance shaft jus' befo' Camshaft an' 'Streaker came racin' in like cryptgliders outta the Pit. Shouldn't be too hard ta find."

"Why's that?"

Jazz grinned devilishly, a gruesome sight with his bloody mouth. "Why, 'cause one'a them took a Magma Frag shell straight to th' faceplate an' another one's tryin' ta spit the sword outta his throat. You bettah hurry up, though, 'cause some King-sized Decepticons are bound ta be knockin' down our door any click now."

"Camshaft, you say? I've got a bone to pick with him," Overdrive boomed as he joined the group, clanking past in his ornate and ridiculously huge Knight's Armor, a relic from his time governing Nyon. He obviously hadn't gotten the whole conversation over his comms link and the sound of his armor. "MAXIMUM! **OVERDRIVE!**"

And with that, a rocket booster on the back of his armor opened up and fired, lightly cooking the faceplates of his compatriots with benzene-flavored vapor. The combat specialist hung left and plunged into the maintenance shaft, singing his city-state's national anthem in an incongruous _tenore._

"Let's break 'em down," Huffer said, and followed brandishing his nailguns. The others trickled out of the corridor too - including Optimus.

"Ooh! Get my sword if ya can, will ya? I'll be right down - jus' gotta get back on my pedes!" Jazz called after them.

* * *

Three levels above them, a Cassetticon, runty even for his size class, stopped in front of a CR tank suspended above a blackened chasm.

"_Are you _sure _this is it_?"

The dim red glow from the lava far below reflected off of Rumble's body, creating a rather sinister look. "You've got the same bond that I do."

Glitch stood on his hind legs, peering into the pod clinging onto the edge of a precipice overlooking the uppermost deck of the _Ark; _pockmarked with artillery craters and so coated with soot one could barely make out the glint of the ship's sparse Electrum plating.

"_It's a miracle he hasn't been lost to the volcano already,_" Glitch murmured. "_We've been asleep for such a long time . . ._"

Rumble scoffed, holding himself back from stomping his foot or punching a wall. He didn't like restraining himself. "Knock off th' Nightbeat slag an' let's get goin', or else th' Birds'll get taken apart! I wanna get outta here already!"

"_Rather uncharacteristic of you, wouldn't you say?"_ the feline Cassetticon snarked, then blanched as his sibling shot a piercing glare his way. "_Yes, yes. I'll get right on it. Dear Onyx . . . it's not good, I'm afraid. Might be too much damage for even a stasis pod to fix . . ."_

A pang of fear touched Rumble. Glitch could feel it too, however momentarily, through their spark-bond. "But . . . he'll be OK though, won't he? Boss's too tough to just . . . fade away, right?"

"_I _might _be able to coax the pod to do things it normally wouldn't," _the Medic said. He got up on two legs again and flexed his right paw, which transformed into a highly articulated hand with opposable thumbs and everything. Tiny touchpads on the fingertips glowed a soothing blue as they came online, and Glitch took a moment to acquaint himself with his new appendage. ". . . _but I'll need time. Cover me - we can only hope Creator'll come through before the Autobots sense us."_

Naturally, gunfire instantly erupted somewhere on a lower level. Close. Very close. A peculiar vehicle, like a forklift without a cabin, raced into the room. Lying prone across it was the limp body of Buzzsaw, spewing fluids all over the room. A sword was driven nearly all the way through his long, sinewy neck.

"_Buzzsaw's hurt!" _said Laserbeak, somewhat unnecessarily. "_Did what I could in the field. Wasn't enough. Gotta go now!"_

Rumble swore. "Glitch! We've got a problem here, see?"

Glitch felt as if he'd suddenly been torn in two. Grimacing, he slapped a button on the tank and bounded over to help his brother.

_Attention all, _Ravage's voice came over the Cassetticon frequency. _Progress report. We are being overrun. Cannot hold much longer - should we be calling the others or no? Come back ASAP._

The white tiger choked back a sob of panic - not from the stress of his medical operations, but from the sounds of angry Autobot voices coming out above the gunfire that was growing louder and closer by the second.

_Tigertrack, we are losing ground. Progress report. __**Now,**_ Ravage continued - calm, but very insistent.

"_Ahem,_" Glitch coughed, trying in vain to put the situation out of his mind. "_Under the circumstances, I think we should - yes. Alert Megatron. Tell him - tell him to send as many troops as possible. I'll take the blame for it. Again. I'm sorry for dragging you into this, all of you."_

"I hope you know what you're doing, glitch-head," Rumble muttered. "We'll be lucky if any of us makes it outta here with our lives."

Glitch didn't respond - he was too busy, moving back and forth between the pod and Buzzsaw, trying frantically to stabilize both of their conditions. Of course they would survive - they had to. Because, suspended in green nanobot fluid that had just begun to swirl, burned and broken, clinging to the edge of life in his deep slumber, was Soundwave. And he was the key to the Decepticons' survival.

FIN


End file.
